Phaedra Daipha
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226298542
- eISBN:
- 9780226298719
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226298719.003.0003
- Subject:
- Sociology, Science, Technology and Environment
This chapter takes the reader on a tour of a NWS forecasting office’s ecology, operations, and culture to ultimately settle into a discussion of the basic routine of a forecast shift—from the moment ...
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This chapter takes the reader on a tour of a NWS forecasting office’s ecology, operations, and culture to ultimately settle into a discussion of the basic routine of a forecast shift—from the moment the incoming forecaster gets briefed by the outgoing forecaster to the moment she releases the NWS forecast to the world. While thoroughly intertwined in practice, the three main components of the forecasting task, to be considered in turn, are data analysis, deliberation, and forecast production. This step-by-step breakdown of the forecasting process sets the stage for the sustained examination of particular aspects of meteorological decision-making in the chapters to come. But it also fleshes out and elaborates pragmatist theory of action with the day-to-day realities of diagnosis and prognosis at the NWS.Less
This chapter takes the reader on a tour of a NWS forecasting office’s ecology, operations, and culture to ultimately settle into a discussion of the basic routine of a forecast shift—from the moment the incoming forecaster gets briefed by the outgoing forecaster to the moment she releases the NWS forecast to the world. While thoroughly intertwined in practice, the three main components of the forecasting task, to be considered in turn, are data analysis, deliberation, and forecast production. This step-by-step breakdown of the forecasting process sets the stage for the sustained examination of particular aspects of meteorological decision-making in the chapters to come. But it also fleshes out and elaborates pragmatist theory of action with the day-to-day realities of diagnosis and prognosis at the NWS.
Phaedra Daipha
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226298542
- eISBN:
- 9780226298719
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226298719.003.0006
- Subject:
- Sociology, Science, Technology and Environment
Turning to the temporal dimensions of meteorological decision-making, this chapter identifies two principles underlying the logic of weather forecasting practice: risk and scale. The former rests on ...
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Turning to the temporal dimensions of meteorological decision-making, this chapter identifies two principles underlying the logic of weather forecasting practice: risk and scale. The former rests on a demarcation between routine and non-routine operations, while the latter is driven by the fact that the more global the reach of a weather phenomenon the earlier its detection. The joint influence of risk and spatial scale on weather forecasting practice yields four temporal regimes of decision-making: emergency, extended alert, near-term, and longer-term. This rudimentary framework is elaborated through an analysis of its empirical manifestation in summer weather forecasting, winter weather forecasting, short-term forecasting, and long-term forecasting respectively. The analysis complicates dual-process models of cognitive processing by establishing that, in practice, deliberation and heuristics are combined across disparate temporal regimes to produce organizationally sanctioned, skilled decisions.Less
Turning to the temporal dimensions of meteorological decision-making, this chapter identifies two principles underlying the logic of weather forecasting practice: risk and scale. The former rests on a demarcation between routine and non-routine operations, while the latter is driven by the fact that the more global the reach of a weather phenomenon the earlier its detection. The joint influence of risk and spatial scale on weather forecasting practice yields four temporal regimes of decision-making: emergency, extended alert, near-term, and longer-term. This rudimentary framework is elaborated through an analysis of its empirical manifestation in summer weather forecasting, winter weather forecasting, short-term forecasting, and long-term forecasting respectively. The analysis complicates dual-process models of cognitive processing by establishing that, in practice, deliberation and heuristics are combined across disparate temporal regimes to produce organizationally sanctioned, skilled decisions.
Jamie L. Pietruska
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780226475004
- eISBN:
- 9780226509150
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226509150.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This chapter examines conflicts over long-range weather forecasting from the 1890s to the 1910s, when the US Weather Bureau attempted to suppress the popular commercial “weather prophets” who sold ...
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This chapter examines conflicts over long-range weather forecasting from the 1890s to the 1910s, when the US Weather Bureau attempted to suppress the popular commercial “weather prophets” who sold predictions a month, a season, or a year in advance and threatened the professional authority of the government’s civilian weather agency. It focuses on the career of Willis L. Moore, chief of the Weather Bureau from 1895 to 1913, and his efforts to discredit private long-range forecasters as frauds while teaching the public to trust in but also accept the limitations of short-term weather forecasting and scientific meteorology. It also describes Moore’s rivalry with St. Louis long-range forecaster W. T. Foster and Moore’s ironic entry into the long-range forecasting business himself. The chapter traces the shift from the Weather Bureau’s rejection of long-range forecasting as unscientific toward the introduction of its weekly forecasts in the early twentieth century and its acceptance of uncertainty as an inescapable feature of weather forecasting.Less
This chapter examines conflicts over long-range weather forecasting from the 1890s to the 1910s, when the US Weather Bureau attempted to suppress the popular commercial “weather prophets” who sold predictions a month, a season, or a year in advance and threatened the professional authority of the government’s civilian weather agency. It focuses on the career of Willis L. Moore, chief of the Weather Bureau from 1895 to 1913, and his efforts to discredit private long-range forecasters as frauds while teaching the public to trust in but also accept the limitations of short-term weather forecasting and scientific meteorology. It also describes Moore’s rivalry with St. Louis long-range forecaster W. T. Foster and Moore’s ironic entry into the long-range forecasting business himself. The chapter traces the shift from the Weather Bureau’s rejection of long-range forecasting as unscientific toward the introduction of its weekly forecasts in the early twentieth century and its acceptance of uncertainty as an inescapable feature of weather forecasting.
Gary Alan Fine
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- February 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226249520
- eISBN:
- 9780226249544
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226249544.003.0005
- Subject:
- Sociology, Science, Technology and Environment
This chapter explores public science as communication. Specifically, it addresses four aspects of the occupational tasks of meteorologists: how they coordinate their forecasts with others inside ...
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This chapter explores public science as communication. Specifically, it addresses four aspects of the occupational tasks of meteorologists: how they coordinate their forecasts with others inside their office and with other National Weather Service offices; the art of writing forecasts and forecast discussions, suggesting how meteorologists think about their words; how forecasters at the Storm Prediction Center use visual representations (“boxes”) to claim their authority, emphasizing that communication is not necessarily tied to words; and the technological change the author of this book observed during his research in which a computerized forecast system was introduced. In this system meteorologists manipulated a database, which removed the authority to create the written forecast from the meteorologist.Less
This chapter explores public science as communication. Specifically, it addresses four aspects of the occupational tasks of meteorologists: how they coordinate their forecasts with others inside their office and with other National Weather Service offices; the art of writing forecasts and forecast discussions, suggesting how meteorologists think about their words; how forecasters at the Storm Prediction Center use visual representations (“boxes”) to claim their authority, emphasizing that communication is not necessarily tied to words; and the technological change the author of this book observed during his research in which a computerized forecast system was introduced. In this system meteorologists manipulated a database, which removed the authority to create the written forecast from the meteorologist.
Kristine C. Harper
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262083782
- eISBN:
- 9780262274982
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262083782.003.0002
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Technology and Society
This chapter describes the stagnant state of meteorological services during the interwar period. The US Weather Bureau was the agency responsible for the nation’s weather. Operating on a small budget ...
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This chapter describes the stagnant state of meteorological services during the interwar period. The US Weather Bureau was the agency responsible for the nation’s weather. Operating on a small budget of $2 million annually—or two cents per person—its free weather forecasts saved American farmers and businesses tens of millions of dollars by reducing crop losses. But despite its positive economic influence, the Bureau’s budget and staff shrank due to the funding reductions of the Great Depression. What little progress had been made, primarily in aviation-related support, gave way to drastic retrenchment during the 1930s.Less
This chapter describes the stagnant state of meteorological services during the interwar period. The US Weather Bureau was the agency responsible for the nation’s weather. Operating on a small budget of $2 million annually—or two cents per person—its free weather forecasts saved American farmers and businesses tens of millions of dollars by reducing crop losses. But despite its positive economic influence, the Bureau’s budget and staff shrank due to the funding reductions of the Great Depression. What little progress had been made, primarily in aviation-related support, gave way to drastic retrenchment during the 1930s.
Gary Alan Fine
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- February 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226249520
- eISBN:
- 9780226249544
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226249544.003.0002
- Subject:
- Sociology, Science, Technology and Environment
This chapter explores the social contours of the meteorological life. The goal is to situate the occupation within its organizational and social psychological constraints. It argues that the ...
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This chapter explores the social contours of the meteorological life. The goal is to situate the occupation within its organizational and social psychological constraints. It argues that the structure, culture, and interactions of operational meteorologists create the conditions in which weather forecasts are produced. In this case, it is the relationship of meteorology to science, to claims about the future, and to the communication of this knowledge that are at issue. The chapter begins with the place and space in which meteorology is done, moving inward to work relations, the links between humans and machines, and labor under conditions of stress and threat. Although meteorologists work for numerous organizations, the focus is on government employees, the authors of official weather information and keepers of the equipment that produces this information.Less
This chapter explores the social contours of the meteorological life. The goal is to situate the occupation within its organizational and social psychological constraints. It argues that the structure, culture, and interactions of operational meteorologists create the conditions in which weather forecasts are produced. In this case, it is the relationship of meteorology to science, to claims about the future, and to the communication of this knowledge that are at issue. The chapter begins with the place and space in which meteorology is done, moving inward to work relations, the links between humans and machines, and labor under conditions of stress and threat. Although meteorologists work for numerous organizations, the focus is on government employees, the authors of official weather information and keepers of the equipment that produces this information.
Gary Fine
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- February 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226249520
- eISBN:
- 9780226249544
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226249544.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Science, Technology and Environment
Whether it is used as an icebreaker in conversation or as the subject of serious inquiry, “the weather” is one of the few subjects that everyone talks about. And though we recognize the faces that ...
More
Whether it is used as an icebreaker in conversation or as the subject of serious inquiry, “the weather” is one of the few subjects that everyone talks about. And though we recognize the faces that bring us the weather on television, how government meteorologists and forecasters go about their jobs is rarely scrutinized. Given recent weather-related disasters, it is time we find out more. This book offers an inside look at how meteorologists and forecasters predict the weather. Based on field observation and interviews at the Storm Prediction Center in Oklahoma, the National Weather Service in Washington, D.C., and a handful of midwestern outlets, the book finds a supremely hard-working, insular clique of professionals who often refer to themselves as a “band of brothers.” In this book, we learn their lingo, how they “read” weather conditions, how forecasts are written, and, of course, how those messages are conveyed to the public. Weather forecasts, the book shows, are often shaped as much by social and cultural factors inside local offices as they are by approaching cumulus clouds. By opening up this world to us, the book offers a glimpse of a crucial profession.Less
Whether it is used as an icebreaker in conversation or as the subject of serious inquiry, “the weather” is one of the few subjects that everyone talks about. And though we recognize the faces that bring us the weather on television, how government meteorologists and forecasters go about their jobs is rarely scrutinized. Given recent weather-related disasters, it is time we find out more. This book offers an inside look at how meteorologists and forecasters predict the weather. Based on field observation and interviews at the Storm Prediction Center in Oklahoma, the National Weather Service in Washington, D.C., and a handful of midwestern outlets, the book finds a supremely hard-working, insular clique of professionals who often refer to themselves as a “band of brothers.” In this book, we learn their lingo, how they “read” weather conditions, how forecasts are written, and, of course, how those messages are conveyed to the public. Weather forecasts, the book shows, are often shaped as much by social and cultural factors inside local offices as they are by approaching cumulus clouds. By opening up this world to us, the book offers a glimpse of a crucial profession.
Gary Alan Fine
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- February 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226249520
- eISBN:
- 9780226249544
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226249544.003.0004
- Subject:
- Sociology, Science, Technology and Environment
This chapter explores the production of the future. How do meteorologists create forecasts to contain uncertainty? Meteorologists rely on gathered data in conjunction with models that provide a ...
More
This chapter explores the production of the future. How do meteorologists create forecasts to contain uncertainty? Meteorologists rely on gathered data in conjunction with models that provide a theoretical infrastructure. This affects the data to be collected. But if this was all that was necessary, forecasters would not be needed, so humans carve out a domain of personal expertise, selecting among alternate models, doubting the adequacy of data, and then adding their own experience. Armed with data, theory, and experience, the organization provides legitimacy that is crucial for the presentation of these public predictions. Meteorologists, like other future workers, are authorized to predict by their sponsors. They are mandated to colonize the future.Less
This chapter explores the production of the future. How do meteorologists create forecasts to contain uncertainty? Meteorologists rely on gathered data in conjunction with models that provide a theoretical infrastructure. This affects the data to be collected. But if this was all that was necessary, forecasters would not be needed, so humans carve out a domain of personal expertise, selecting among alternate models, doubting the adequacy of data, and then adding their own experience. Armed with data, theory, and experience, the organization provides legitimacy that is crucial for the presentation of these public predictions. Meteorologists, like other future workers, are authorized to predict by their sponsors. They are mandated to colonize the future.
Kristine C. Harper
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262083782
- eISBN:
- 9780262274982
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262083782.003.0008
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Technology and Society
This chapter details the progress toward operational numerical weather prediction. All three weather services—the Navy, the Air Force, and the Weather Bureau—which were members of the Joint ...
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This chapter details the progress toward operational numerical weather prediction. All three weather services—the Navy, the Air Force, and the Weather Bureau—which were members of the Joint Meteorological Committee of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, coordinated the details of the new Joint Numerical Weather Prediction Unit (JNWPU) to be located in Suitland, Maryland. Despite challenges, they produced the first “operational” weather map in May 1955—almost three years after deciding to move numerical weather prediction from the realm of research to operations. In so doing, the three weather services advanced numerical techniques more quickly than would have been possible in the less time-critical research environment.Less
This chapter details the progress toward operational numerical weather prediction. All three weather services—the Navy, the Air Force, and the Weather Bureau—which were members of the Joint Meteorological Committee of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, coordinated the details of the new Joint Numerical Weather Prediction Unit (JNWPU) to be located in Suitland, Maryland. Despite challenges, they produced the first “operational” weather map in May 1955—almost three years after deciding to move numerical weather prediction from the realm of research to operations. In so doing, the three weather services advanced numerical techniques more quickly than would have been possible in the less time-critical research environment.
Jamie L. Pietruska
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780226475004
- eISBN:
- 9780226509150
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226509150.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This chapter focuses on controversies over rural access to short-term weather forecasts and storm warnings after 1870, when the US Army Signal Service established the country’s first national weather ...
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This chapter focuses on controversies over rural access to short-term weather forecasts and storm warnings after 1870, when the US Army Signal Service established the country’s first national weather service and brought official government forecasts into daily life. It describes the operation of the Signal Service’s information network, which collected synchronous weather observations from across the country that were transmitted by telegraph to Washington, D.C. and translated into a daily weather summary and forecast called the “Synopsis and Probabilities.” The chapter focuses on the increasing rural demand for access to government weather forecasts and the Signal Service’s attempts to disseminate weather information to areas beyond the reach of its telegraph network in the 1870s and 1880s. It features the perspectives of rural postmasters and farmers who experienced daily uncertainties regarding when and if the daily “Probabilities” would arrive. The chapter reveals how the government’s problem of short-term weather forecasting in the countryside was solved by the advent of Rural Free Delivery and rural telephone lines at the turn of the twentieth century.Less
This chapter focuses on controversies over rural access to short-term weather forecasts and storm warnings after 1870, when the US Army Signal Service established the country’s first national weather service and brought official government forecasts into daily life. It describes the operation of the Signal Service’s information network, which collected synchronous weather observations from across the country that were transmitted by telegraph to Washington, D.C. and translated into a daily weather summary and forecast called the “Synopsis and Probabilities.” The chapter focuses on the increasing rural demand for access to government weather forecasts and the Signal Service’s attempts to disseminate weather information to areas beyond the reach of its telegraph network in the 1870s and 1880s. It features the perspectives of rural postmasters and farmers who experienced daily uncertainties regarding when and if the daily “Probabilities” would arrive. The chapter reveals how the government’s problem of short-term weather forecasting in the countryside was solved by the advent of Rural Free Delivery and rural telephone lines at the turn of the twentieth century.
Kristine C. Harper
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262083782
- eISBN:
- 9780262274982
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262083782.003.0007
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Technology and Society
This chapter details how the Meteorology Project tested a variety of atmospheric models. First run on Army Ordnance’s ENIAC and then on John von Neumann’s computer, the team members modified the ...
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This chapter details how the Meteorology Project tested a variety of atmospheric models. First run on Army Ordnance’s ENIAC and then on John von Neumann’s computer, the team members modified the models to get a “match” between the computer forecast and the weather that had occurred. The initial post hoc forecasts of the infamous 1950 Thanksgiving Day storm, which had dumped large amounts of snow and rain in the Mid-Atlantic states, were made in spring 1952. The results were poor. The first two computer models failed to catch the explosive deepening of the low-pressure system, but the third model—a simple two-level baroclinic model—did the trick. Even though the “predicted” low-pressure center was 240 miles from its observed position, the computer-generated forecast would have allowed forecasters to forecast the rain and snow that had disrupted the Eastern Seaboard. The Princeton team members were moving closer toward their goal of creating a realistic atmospheric prediction, but they were not the only ones. Army Air Force meteorologist Philip Thompson, an original Meteorology Project member, was also developing and testing his own models at the Air Force’s Geophysical Research Directorate in Cambridge, Massachusetts.Less
This chapter details how the Meteorology Project tested a variety of atmospheric models. First run on Army Ordnance’s ENIAC and then on John von Neumann’s computer, the team members modified the models to get a “match” between the computer forecast and the weather that had occurred. The initial post hoc forecasts of the infamous 1950 Thanksgiving Day storm, which had dumped large amounts of snow and rain in the Mid-Atlantic states, were made in spring 1952. The results were poor. The first two computer models failed to catch the explosive deepening of the low-pressure system, but the third model—a simple two-level baroclinic model—did the trick. Even though the “predicted” low-pressure center was 240 miles from its observed position, the computer-generated forecast would have allowed forecasters to forecast the rain and snow that had disrupted the Eastern Seaboard. The Princeton team members were moving closer toward their goal of creating a realistic atmospheric prediction, but they were not the only ones. Army Air Force meteorologist Philip Thompson, an original Meteorology Project member, was also developing and testing his own models at the Air Force’s Geophysical Research Directorate in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Gary Alan Fine
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- February 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226249520
- eISBN:
- 9780226249544
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226249544.003.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Science, Technology and Environment
This introductory chapter begins by outlining the broad theoretical issues addressed in this book, in an attempt to understand the conditions of work of weather forecasters. It then provides a ...
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This introductory chapter begins by outlining the broad theoretical issues addressed in this book, in an attempt to understand the conditions of work of weather forecasters. It then provides a background on the current study, followed by a discussion of the history and memory of weather. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.Less
This introductory chapter begins by outlining the broad theoretical issues addressed in this book, in an attempt to understand the conditions of work of weather forecasters. It then provides a background on the current study, followed by a discussion of the history and memory of weather. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.
Kristine C. Harper
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262083782
- eISBN:
- 9780262274982
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262083782.003.0009
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Technology and Society
The opening of the new Joint Numerical Weather Prediction Unit marked the end of the preliminary research period, but it was just the beginning of the worldwide spread of numerical weather ...
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The opening of the new Joint Numerical Weather Prediction Unit marked the end of the preliminary research period, but it was just the beginning of the worldwide spread of numerical weather prediction. This chapter briefly extends the story to the current time. As their very different meteorological missions exacerbated cultural differences, the Navy and the Air Force removed their personnel and formed their own operational prediction units, leaving the Weather Bureau to fund and staff its own center. As computer availability, processing speed, and memory capacity increased, universities began their own modeling and research projects. The modeling and prediction efforts of individual European nations joined forces to create the European Center for Mid-Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF), which would provide formidable competition to US-based efforts. In time, modelers would attempt to forecast for longer and longer periods, until long-range forecasts took the first steps to becoming climate models.Less
The opening of the new Joint Numerical Weather Prediction Unit marked the end of the preliminary research period, but it was just the beginning of the worldwide spread of numerical weather prediction. This chapter briefly extends the story to the current time. As their very different meteorological missions exacerbated cultural differences, the Navy and the Air Force removed their personnel and formed their own operational prediction units, leaving the Weather Bureau to fund and staff its own center. As computer availability, processing speed, and memory capacity increased, universities began their own modeling and research projects. The modeling and prediction efforts of individual European nations joined forces to create the European Center for Mid-Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF), which would provide formidable competition to US-based efforts. In time, modelers would attempt to forecast for longer and longer periods, until long-range forecasts took the first steps to becoming climate models.
Andrew P. Ingersoll
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691145044
- eISBN:
- 9781400848232
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691145044.003.0008
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Climate
This chapter examines the effect of winds on Jupiter's weather. The Great Red Spot is an atmospheric structure—a storm—that is free to move about under the laws of fluid dynamics. On Earth, these ...
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This chapter examines the effect of winds on Jupiter's weather. The Great Red Spot is an atmospheric structure—a storm—that is free to move about under the laws of fluid dynamics. On Earth, these laws lead to turbulence, chaos, and limited predictability. By comparison, the Red Spot is well behaved. It stays in one latitude band, rolling like a ball bearing between two conveyor belts—a westward current to the north and an eastward current to the south. All the large-scale features are remarkably constant. Atmospheric scientists during the Voyager encounter were surprised by the areas outside the Red Spot and the three white ovals—formerly featureless areas that had become turbulent convective regions. The chapter first provides an overview of long-range weather forecasting on Jupiter before discussing the dynamics of rotating fluids, momentum transfer by eddies, stability of zonal jets, geostrophic balance, vorticity, and abyssal weather.Less
This chapter examines the effect of winds on Jupiter's weather. The Great Red Spot is an atmospheric structure—a storm—that is free to move about under the laws of fluid dynamics. On Earth, these laws lead to turbulence, chaos, and limited predictability. By comparison, the Red Spot is well behaved. It stays in one latitude band, rolling like a ball bearing between two conveyor belts—a westward current to the north and an eastward current to the south. All the large-scale features are remarkably constant. Atmospheric scientists during the Voyager encounter were surprised by the areas outside the Red Spot and the three white ovals—formerly featureless areas that had become turbulent convective regions. The chapter first provides an overview of long-range weather forecasting on Jupiter before discussing the dynamics of rotating fluids, momentum transfer by eddies, stability of zonal jets, geostrophic balance, vorticity, and abyssal weather.
Kristine C. Harper
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262083782
- eISBN:
- 9780262274982
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262083782.003.0006
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Technology and Society
This chapter discusses how Carl-Gustav Rossby’s research school not only influenced international meteorology generally, but also overcame the initial skepticism of both theoretical and applied ...
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This chapter discusses how Carl-Gustav Rossby’s research school not only influenced international meteorology generally, but also overcame the initial skepticism of both theoretical and applied meteorologists who doubted that numerical weather prediction was a valid and necessary technique for extending meteorological theory and improving weather forecasting. Founder of two meteorology programs in the United States (those at MIT and the University of Chicago), responsible for wartime training, and founder of the first peer-reviewed meteorological journal in the United States and of a Swedish journal aimed at the broader international geophysics community, Rossby was in the perfect position to convince the international meteorological community of the wisdom of numerical weather prediction. Providing a series of Scandinavian meteorologists who could bridge the gap between synoptic (current weather analysis) and dynamic (atmospheric motions) meteorology, he played a significant and largely unheralded role in the successful development of numerical weather-prediction techniques.Less
This chapter discusses how Carl-Gustav Rossby’s research school not only influenced international meteorology generally, but also overcame the initial skepticism of both theoretical and applied meteorologists who doubted that numerical weather prediction was a valid and necessary technique for extending meteorological theory and improving weather forecasting. Founder of two meteorology programs in the United States (those at MIT and the University of Chicago), responsible for wartime training, and founder of the first peer-reviewed meteorological journal in the United States and of a Swedish journal aimed at the broader international geophysics community, Rossby was in the perfect position to convince the international meteorological community of the wisdom of numerical weather prediction. Providing a series of Scandinavian meteorologists who could bridge the gap between synoptic (current weather analysis) and dynamic (atmospheric motions) meteorology, he played a significant and largely unheralded role in the successful development of numerical weather-prediction techniques.
Kristine C. Harper
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262083782
- eISBN:
- 9780262274982
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262083782.003.0003
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Technology and Society
This chapter discusses the establishment of meteorology programs, and later departments, beginning in the late 1920s. Carl-Gustav Rossby’s theoretical program at the Massachusetts Institute of ...
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This chapter discusses the establishment of meteorology programs, and later departments, beginning in the late 1920s. Carl-Gustav Rossby’s theoretical program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was followed within a few years by applied aviation-related meteorology programs at New York University and at the California Institute of Technology. Young people interested in meteorology—not to mention forecasters already employed by the US Weather Bureau, the US Navy, and the US Army Signal Corps—had domestic options for meteorological education. Having formed their own national professional organization in 1919—the American Meteorological Society (AMS)—a higher-profile meteorology community took shape. The AMS encouraged the expansion of educational opportunities at all levels and worked to influence an emerging research agenda in meteorology.Less
This chapter discusses the establishment of meteorology programs, and later departments, beginning in the late 1920s. Carl-Gustav Rossby’s theoretical program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was followed within a few years by applied aviation-related meteorology programs at New York University and at the California Institute of Technology. Young people interested in meteorology—not to mention forecasters already employed by the US Weather Bureau, the US Navy, and the US Army Signal Corps—had domestic options for meteorological education. Having formed their own national professional organization in 1919—the American Meteorological Society (AMS)—a higher-profile meteorology community took shape. The AMS encouraged the expansion of educational opportunities at all levels and worked to influence an emerging research agenda in meteorology.
Jamie L. Pietruska
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780226475004
- eISBN:
- 9780226509150
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226509150.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This book is a history of forecasting in the United States from the 1860s to the 1920s that examines how methods of prediction and ideas about predictability changed as Americans reckoned with new ...
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This book is a history of forecasting in the United States from the 1860s to the 1920s that examines how methods of prediction and ideas about predictability changed as Americans reckoned with new uncertainties in post-Civil War economy and culture and debated whether it was possible to predict the future with any degree of certainty. The book examines crop forecasting, weather forecasting, economic forecasting, utopian literature, and fortune-telling and considers forecasts as forms of knowledge production and tools for risk management. The book’s main argument revises the historical interpretation of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a “search for order” by demonstrating that a search for predictability yielded the opposite: acceptance of the uncertainties of twentieth-century economic and cultural life. It demonstrates how routinized forecasts of everyday life became ubiquitous in a late-nineteenth-century culture of prediction, revising scholarly accounts that locate the origins of professional forecasting in the Cold War. The book also uncovers rural origins of modern bureaucratic rationality in the histories of crop and weather forecasting, both of which depended on large-scale government information networks that are an overlooked example of the size and reach of the nineteenth-century American state. The book emphasizes controversies over forecasts’ meaning and value, contests over forecasters’ authority and expertise, and epistemic debates over the nature of forecasting itself.Less
This book is a history of forecasting in the United States from the 1860s to the 1920s that examines how methods of prediction and ideas about predictability changed as Americans reckoned with new uncertainties in post-Civil War economy and culture and debated whether it was possible to predict the future with any degree of certainty. The book examines crop forecasting, weather forecasting, economic forecasting, utopian literature, and fortune-telling and considers forecasts as forms of knowledge production and tools for risk management. The book’s main argument revises the historical interpretation of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a “search for order” by demonstrating that a search for predictability yielded the opposite: acceptance of the uncertainties of twentieth-century economic and cultural life. It demonstrates how routinized forecasts of everyday life became ubiquitous in a late-nineteenth-century culture of prediction, revising scholarly accounts that locate the origins of professional forecasting in the Cold War. The book also uncovers rural origins of modern bureaucratic rationality in the histories of crop and weather forecasting, both of which depended on large-scale government information networks that are an overlooked example of the size and reach of the nineteenth-century American state. The book emphasizes controversies over forecasts’ meaning and value, contests over forecasters’ authority and expertise, and epistemic debates over the nature of forecasting itself.
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226019680
- eISBN:
- 9780226019703
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226019703.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter argues that men of science built a spectrum of knowledge that connected the most prestigious and impressive kinds of prediction, in astronomy, with other lesser investigations in order ...
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This chapter argues that men of science built a spectrum of knowledge that connected the most prestigious and impressive kinds of prediction, in astronomy, with other lesser investigations in order to represent science as the highest form of reason. But those arguments about a spectrum of knowledge could turn into a liability. The central place of prediction in accounts of a cultural hierarchy of knowledge made the struggle with partial and inexact forecasts in meteorology a critical matter. The debates about prediction provide a framework for understanding meteorological controversies as they unfolded from the 1840s to the 1880s.Less
This chapter argues that men of science built a spectrum of knowledge that connected the most prestigious and impressive kinds of prediction, in astronomy, with other lesser investigations in order to represent science as the highest form of reason. But those arguments about a spectrum of knowledge could turn into a liability. The central place of prediction in accounts of a cultural hierarchy of knowledge made the struggle with partial and inexact forecasts in meteorology a critical matter. The debates about prediction provide a framework for understanding meteorological controversies as they unfolded from the 1840s to the 1880s.
Peter J. Diggle and Amanda G. Chetwynd
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- December 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199543182
- eISBN:
- 9780191774867
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199543182.003.0009
- Subject:
- Mathematics, Probability / Statistics, Biostatistics
This chapter discusses time series analysis. A time series is a sequence of measurements made at equally spaced times, for example a set of daily recorded levels of air pollution at a specific ...
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This chapter discusses time series analysis. A time series is a sequence of measurements made at equally spaced times, for example a set of daily recorded levels of air pollution at a specific location. The discussions cover weather forecasting; why time series data need special treatment; trend and seasonal variation; autocorrelation and why it matters; and prediction in time series analysis.Less
This chapter discusses time series analysis. A time series is a sequence of measurements made at equally spaced times, for example a set of daily recorded levels of air pollution at a specific location. The discussions cover weather forecasting; why time series data need special treatment; trend and seasonal variation; autocorrelation and why it matters; and prediction in time series analysis.
James Clay Moltz
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231159128
- eISBN:
- 9780231528177
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231159128.003.0005
- Subject:
- Political Science, Conflict Politics and Policy
This chapter explores military-related challenges and opportunities in space. To date, most military space activities consist of support functions—that is, technologies that allow military forces on ...
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This chapter explores military-related challenges and opportunities in space. To date, most military space activities consist of support functions—that is, technologies that allow military forces on the ground, at sea, and in the air to operate more effectively. These include weather forecasting, communications, precision timing and navigation, reconnaissance, and early warning. Space assets make military systems work better and thereby enhance the tools that can be used in other environments, including improving weapons accuracy to reduce casualties and collateral damage. Currently, a number of nations are trying to develop space weapons capabilities, ranging from electronic jammers that interrupt signals to kinetic weapons that destroy enemy spacecraft. China's anti-satellite (ASAT) test in 2007 is a clear example of this. The main goals of such developments are to deny an enemy's “eyes and ears” in space, which could be extremely useful in conflict.Less
This chapter explores military-related challenges and opportunities in space. To date, most military space activities consist of support functions—that is, technologies that allow military forces on the ground, at sea, and in the air to operate more effectively. These include weather forecasting, communications, precision timing and navigation, reconnaissance, and early warning. Space assets make military systems work better and thereby enhance the tools that can be used in other environments, including improving weapons accuracy to reduce casualties and collateral damage. Currently, a number of nations are trying to develop space weapons capabilities, ranging from electronic jammers that interrupt signals to kinetic weapons that destroy enemy spacecraft. China's anti-satellite (ASAT) test in 2007 is a clear example of this. The main goals of such developments are to deny an enemy's “eyes and ears” in space, which could be extremely useful in conflict.
