Our speaker today was Richard (Dick) Whitaker, a former meteorologist with more than 30 years’ experience with the Bureau of Meteorology, The Weather Channel and Sky News Weather as Chief Meteorologist for ten years.Richard also worked with the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) as a rapporteur for the Commission for Agricultural Meteorology, a consultant in the AusAID funded Enhance Applications of Climate Predictions in Pacific Island Countries and author, co-author or consultant editor of more than seventeen books such as The Complete Book of Australian Weather, Understanding Climate Change and Australia’s Natural Disasters and his latest, From Gods to Gigabytes, the title of today’s talk.
We learnt how earlier societies obse
rved the importance of weather patterns to their food production, maritime journeys and natural disasters.
rved the importance of weather patterns to their food production, maritime journeys and natural disasters.Indigenous weather knowledge and practice is a long-term interest of Richard’s, for example, in Tonga, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh a change in the appearance of plants or the habits of wildlife can signify changed levels of humidity thus raising the possibility of rain or bad weather.
In the ancient world, there were many weather gods such as Zeus, Greek god of weather and Thor, the Norse god of thunder. Aristotle also wrote about the relationship and effect on each other of the four elements of fire, air, water and earth to each other in his treatise Meteorlogica, - the origin of the word for the study of weather – meteorology.
In medieval times, the study of weather became especially important in maritime and agricultural communities, for example, various cloud formations could signal an approaching weather change.
However, more accurate weather prediction occurred in the Renaissance period with the use of mathematical calculation and the development of measuring instruments - the barometer, thermometer and the hygrometer. Mathematics was used in the experiments by Irish chemist Robert Boyle in 1600’s to calculate the quantitative relationship between the pressure and volume of a gas as in Boyles Law, where the calculation of global wind patterns led us to understand more about the atmospheric circulation of the Earth.The 1800’s brought the invention of the Morse Code and the birth of a weather warning system. US President Grant established the International Meteorological Organisation (IMO) in 1873 when countries exchanged weather information and forecasting, for the good of all humanity. The first textbook, published in 1922, was written by Lewis Fry Richardson, a pacifist, who pioneered the modern mathematical techniques of weather.
Richard then spoke of some of the key developments toward the computerised world – the gigabyte era we know today.
The Enigma machine family used a ciphering system, developed by mathematician Alan Turing, which enabled Morse code radio communications to be de-ciphered and read during WW11. In1945 the USA developed ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, the first programmable electronic general purpose digital computer with the ability to solve large numerical problems through re-programming.
TIROS- Television InfraRed Observational Satellite was the first meteorological weather satellite to be launched in 1960 to provide accurate weather forecasts from space – the first Selfie and the highly technical world of today’s weather forecasting throughout the world.
Questions from members were n
umerous and some topics were:
umerous and some topics were: Effects on weather of the full moon.
Farmers’ planting almanac accuracy in local areas
La Nino and El Nina
Tsunami warning systems, are they adequate?
Melting Polar Caps
Climate change effects and are cyclones getting stronger?