On Nov 11, 3:11 pm, Michael Tobis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I am looking for resources regarding the early history of the > atmospheric and oceanic sciences. The literature on this subject > appears at first glance to be quite sparse. I'd be happy to be proven > wrong on this, though. > > My motivating question is wondering how old the basic understanding of > convective clouds is. > > On Wikipedia, a detailed mathematical theory is attributed to Tor > Bergeron and W. Findeisen in the 1930s, but surely there was a cruder > understanding of it that is much older. The requisite components seem > to me to result from a qualitative understanding of saturation vapor > pressure, Dalton 1802, according > tohttp://fermi.jhuapl.edu/people/babin/vapor/index.html, and latent > heat, attributed in Wikipedia to a Joseph Black ca. 1750. Thus, it > would appear that the instability that gives rise to a cumulus tower > would have been understandable very early in the 19th century. I would > imagine that some particular person who had the required scientific > knowledge was standing outside on a summer day had a eureka > experience. I wonder why I don't know who that was who first > understood what a storm cloud is. > > I'd welcome any insights on this particular questions or pointers to > appropriate resources. > > Right now I am reading "Calculating the Weather: Meteorology in the > 20th Century" by F. Nebeker (Academic Press 1995) but this work is > very sketchy on the early history of meteorological ideas. > > mt
Here's something: http://www.stormtrack.org/archive/0516.htm http://www.stormtrack.org/archive/0522.htm http://www.stormtrack.org/archive/0534.htm http://www.stormtrack.org/archive/0545.htm http://www.stormtrack.org/archive/0556.htm http://www.stormtrack.org/archive/0566.htm http://www.stormtrack.org/archive/0617.htm See History section here: http://www.stormtrack.org/archive/topic.htm --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change. Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
