Changes

We have increasingly become accustomed to seeing the impact of major hurricanes and weather phenomena on communities. Fortunately, over the 20th and 21st centuries, weather monitoring technologies, such as radar, have allowed us to obtain much more warning before events occur. However, weather monitoring has had a long historical road, as past and modern societies have always had a desire to know what would happen to their crops, homes and livelihoods.

By the 3rd millennium BCE, seasonality and its regularity was recorded. Early weather recording often related to astronomical observations, as seasonal changes, celestial phenomena, and timekeeping were seen as being related. Some of the earliest detailed records of meteorological data derive from ancient Mesopotamia from the 8th century BCE. During that time, a record spanning some six hundred years seems to have been collected that described weather phenomena, often focusing on difficult or bad weather. While the texts often focus on omens, particularly what might happen after a weather phenomenon such as storms occured, the compiling of the data suggests a type of forecasting was intended by the compilation. In effect, the records may have been an attempt to correlate weather events with other events using long-term data, including political, economic and other important matters.<ref>For more on early Mesopotamian records, see: Taub, L.C. (2003) <i>Ancient meteorology. Sciences of antiquity</i>. London ; New York, Routledge, pg. 16-17.</ref> Early records from Mesopotamia also indicate how celestial objects often foreshadowed weather events. For instance, a halo around the moon portends rain and flooding. <ref>For more on weather events and celestial phenomena, see: Teague, K.A. & Gallicchio, N. (2017) <i>The evolution of meteorology: a look into the past, present, and future of weather forecasting </i>. Hoboken, NJ, John Wiley & Sons, Inc, pg. 3-4.</ref>

Aristotle has often been considered a pioneer in meteorology with his book <i>Meteorlogica</i>, with the title suggesting that our present English term deriving from the ancient Greek. Aristotle saw that weather was affected by the four bodies, namely fire, air, earth, water. Many of his views involved the supernatural, similar to Mesopotamia and China; however, he made some important observations. For instance, the rising of hot air and the descent of cold air. He also understood that the atmosphere was complex, consisting of multiple layers (Figure 1).<ref>For more on Aristotle and his early understanding of Meteorology, see: Lettinck, P., Ibn al-Khammār, A. al-K. al-Ḥasan ibn S., Ibn al-Khammār, A. al-K. al-Ḥasan ibn S., Avempace, et al. (1999) Aristotle’s Meteorology and its reception in the Arab world: with an edition and translation of Ibn Suwār’s Treatise on meteorological phenomena and Ibn Bājja’s Commentary on the Meteorology. Aristoteles Semitico-latinus v. 10. Leiden [Netherlands] ; Boston, Brill.</ref>

In the Roman Period, at around 25-50 CE, Pomponius Mela, who was a geographer, formulates a more comprehensive understanding of climatic zones. This includes zones that are comparable to our division of regions into temperate, arctic, desert, and tropical zones. His writings also suggest that these zones were related to the latitude in which someone was in, as more northerly zones generally were colder and more southerly zones had tropical zones. However, within the northern and southern zones, comparable climatic zones could be found and these affect the weather noticeable in those regions (Figure 2).<ref>For more on Pomponius Mala, see: Mela, P. & Romer, F.E. (1998) <i>Pomponius Mela’s description of the world</i>. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press.</ref>

While some observation and understanding of weather phenomena improved in the Middle Ages, there were improvements in optical instruments and observation techniques that allowed better understanding of observations such as rainbows and lightening. It was with Galileo Galilei in the 17th century through the thermoscope, which was a series of glass containers and gases that would rise and fall based on temperature, that more significant changes began to emerge in the understanding of weather. This instrument allowed him and others to make more accurate measurements of temperature, improving understanding of temperature fluctuations. This also now meant that European scientists could move away from Aristotle's concepts of fire, air, water, and earth as driving temperature. While it is not fully clear if Galileo was the inventor of this device, it is clear that such 17th century innovations did help the understanding of weather to now develop in something more similar to what we would call scientific observation.<ref>For more on the thermoscope, see: Valleriani, M. (2010) Galileo engineer. Boston studies in the philosophy of science 269. Dordrecht [Netherlands] ; London ; New York, Springer, pg. 160.</ref>

By the 18th century, recording of weather became more standard, with Gabriel Fahrenheit and Anders Celsius giving us some standard ways we measure temperature that are still with us today. By the early 1800s, Luke Howard began to formulate cloud types in a standard form that allowed better understand of subsequent patterns in rainfall or atmospheric moisture. By 1817, Alexander Humboldt came up with the idea of climatic maps to indicate average global temperature. This began the modern measurement and monitoring of global temperatures that have affected our own understanding of change such as global climate change. The 1830s and 1840s also saw many new types of equipment being utilized for weather monitoring, including measuring barometric pressure, use of storm clocks to measure meteorological data, and use of early cameras for weather observation. By 1849, the United States had developed a series of stations to monitor weather with data sent via telegraph. This long-distance recording and coordination of data allowed the understanding of the relationship between vapor pressure and temperature.<ref>For more on these 18th and early 19th century developments, see: Sherman Hollar (ed.) (2013) <i>Pioneers in the world of weather and climatology</i>. Inventors and innovators. 1st ed. New York, NY, Britannica Educational Pub. in association with Rosen Educational Services.</ref>

Since the 1970s, while technologies have improved, there has been also more devotion by institutions for weather monitoring. This has included the military, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA, as well as many local entities that provide near constant weather observations.<ref>For more on the US weather services, see: Bruce E. Johansen (ed.) (2017) <i>Climate change: an encyclopedia of science, society, and solutions</i>. Santa Barbara, California, ABC-CLIO, an imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC.</ref>