Counting on the weather

Abstract

In the early twenty-first century, it is difficult to imagine a way of life without access to regular and reliable weather forecasts for days and weeks in advance. Similarly, our comprehension of the possible consequences of anthropogenic climate change would not be possible without the scenarios produced by mathematical climate models. Although foresight on upcoming weather and climatic conditions is crucial for a variety of fields such as agriculture, water resource management and aviation, the ability of the meteorological community to provide such predictions has developed only relatively recently—one of the many products of wartime mobilisation in the middle of the twentieth century. In Weather by the Numbers, historian of science and former US Navy meteorologist and oceanographer Kristine C. Harper conveys the story of the development of numerical weather prediction in the United States in the immediate post-War period. Throughout her monograph, Harper presents this effort as pivotal for meteorological science, transforming the field from an art to a ‘‘sophisticated, theoretical atmospheric science’’ (1). This transformation represents the ‘‘genesis of modern meteorology’’ of the book’s subtitle. And central to this formulation of numerical weather prediction was the combination of Scandinavian theoretical expertise and American practical experience with the calculative power of the digital electronic computer. This union of meteorology and the computer arose from the US governmentfunded Meteorology Project, housed at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study. Commencing in 1946, the Project was an attempt to use the Computer Project of mathematician John von Neumann to calculate weather forecasts. The close association of the two projects has given rise, as Harper rightly observes, to the portrayal of von Neumann and his Project as central to the development of