I can't tell you much about the early history, but it seems reasonable to me that this would primarily be a 20th century innovation...
In the early 19th century, the cloud classification scheme we use today was invented, a combination from Howard and Lamarck. This was based solely on the visual appearance of clouds. Not sure there was much understanding of why there were visual differences then, just that there were... Looking through an old cloud physics text "Elements of Cloud Physics" by Byers (1965), the references suggest that some of the necessary concepts of moist thermodynamics (e.g. equivalent potential temperature) didn't come along until the 1930s...Some of the basic physics of phase change needed were down to Gibbs in the 1870s. You also need to know something about the vertical structure of the atmosphere (i.e. lapse rates) in order to determine the buoyancy and instability in a parcel. No consistent observations of that until the 1930s with the invention of the radiosonde. Certainly the first solid in situ observations of what was going on inside a cumulus cloud were post-WW2, published in the seminal 'The Thunderstorm' by Byers and Braham in 1949. This was where the ~1-hr cumulus life cycle was first described. These observations were made by direct penetration by aircraft by post-wartime pilots who apparently had little fear... Radar, first put to meteorological use in the 1950s, has also been vital to our understanding. Did someone else have an earlier, more basic understanding? Maybe, but I don't know who that was either... cheers chris L. On Nov 12, 7:11 am, 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 --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
