The Weather Experiment: The Pioneers Who Sought to See the Future, by Peter Moore
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The Weather Experiment: The Pioneers Who Sought to See the Future, by Peter Moore
Free PDF Ebook The Weather Experiment: The Pioneers Who Sought to See the Future, by Peter Moore
In 1865 Admiral Robert FitzRoy locked himself in his dressing room and cut his throat. His grand meteorological project had failed. Yet only a decade later, FitzRoy's storm warning system and "forecasts" would return, the model for what we use today.
In an age when a storm at sea was evidence of God's wrath, nineteenth-century meteorologists had to fight against convention and religious dogma. Buoyed by the achievements of the Enlightenment, a generation of mavericks set out to decipher the secrets of the atmosphere and predict the future. Among them were Luke Howard, the first to classify clouds; Francis Beaufort, who quantified the winds; James Glaisher, who explored the upper atmosphere in a hot-air balloon; Samuel Morse, whose electric telegraph gave scientists the means by which to transmit weather warnings; and FitzRoy himself, master sailor, scientific pioneer, and founder of the U.K.'s national weather service.
Reputations were built and shattered. Fractious debates raged over decades between scientists from London and Galway, Paris and New York. Explaining the atmosphere was one thing, but predicting what it was going to do seemed a step too far. In 1854, when a politician suggested to the Commons that Londoners might soon know the weather twenty-four hours in advance, the House roared with laughter.
Peter Moore's The Weather Experiment navigates treacherous seas and rough winds to uncover the obsession that drove these men to great invention and greater understanding.
The Weather Experiment: The Pioneers Who Sought to See the Future, by Peter Moore- Amazon Sales Rank: #382213 in Books
- Brand: Moore, Peter
- Published on: 2015-06-02
- Released on: 2015-06-02
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.24" h x 1.29" w x 6.36" l, 1.00 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 416 pages
Review
“Fascinating . . . Moore is the rare science writer who can describe dew point so poetically you feel you’re with him in a twinkling field of white clover on a cool summer morning. Moore’s history is just as evocative, and full of wisdom for modern times.” ―Cynthia Bernett, The New York Times Book Review
“[An] elegantly constructed group biography of the pioneering researchers who, by the end of the 19th century, succeeded in cracking the weather's code. In style and scope, The Weather Experiment recalls the best of its genre.” ―Mike Jay, The Wall Street Journal
“Spirited . . . [The Weather Experiment] blends science, natural history, globe-trotting exploration, and even a little little art history . . . [Moore] is a gifted writer with a nifty turn of phrase.” ―Matthew Prixce, The Boston Globe
“[A] richly researched, exciting book . . . [The Weather Experiment] is both scientific and cultural history, of prize-winning potential, and as fresh and exhilarating throughout as a strong sea breeze.” ―James McConnachie, The Sunday Times
“Moore writes about this band of ad hoc scientists with brio, and it's hard not to be awed and charmed . . . Detailed and insightful, [The Weather Experiment] is as relevant as ever in this era of rapid climate change.” ―Kirkus Review
“Gripping . . . [a] highly readable account of the transformation of modern meteorology from a science of description to a science of prediction . . . Moore's achievement is to imbue [FitzRoy] and his work with palpable narrative life.” ―Richard Hamblyn, The Times Literary Supplement
“With Dickensian detail, Moore brings to life the likes of Francis Beaufort, with 'sabre scars on his arms, reminders of his days at sea,' and the determined Robert FitzRoy . . . Moore captures the suspense and wonder of a scientific discipline's birth.” ―Gemma Tarlach, Discover
“A worthy investigation of the history of weather forecasting.” ―Publishers Weekly
“[A] lucid account of nineteenth-century meteorology . . . Rich in personal details, intellectual conflict, and adventures of men pitted against the elements . . . You will be swept away by the vigor and eloquence of Moore's well-researched narrative.” ―Laurence A. Marschall, Natural History
“Thought-provoking . . . Moore marshals his solidly researched historical information into a neat pattern . . . a gripping tale of derring-do.” ―Patricia Fara, Literary Review
About the Author Peter Moore was born in Staffordshire, England in 1983. He is the author of Damn His Blood: Being a True and Detailed History of the Most Barbarous and Inhumane Murder at Oddingley and the Quick and Awful Retribution. He is a visiting lecturer at City University London, where he teaches nonfiction writing, and was recently the writer in residence at Gladstone's Library in Hawarden, Wales.
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Most helpful customer reviews
55 of 56 people found the following review helpful. Highly Readable, Highly Informative & Highly Recommended By Earl Grey This delightful book is highly readable, highly informative and highly recommended. Anyone with an interest in the foundations of scientific weather analysis, 19th century history of discovery and invention, or just wonders how we got to understand the weather would be well served by spending time with this finely written account. I found myself 100 pages in before I knew it. Having had to put this book down in order to sleep and then work I found myself looking forward to being able to pick it up again and continue with being both entertained and enlightened by it. Our journey from accommodating, enduring and fearing the weather to understanding its causes and forecasting it is a story worth investigating.The research is broad and extensive but is written up in a way that both the specialist and general reader can enjoy. The large cast of characters is deftly handled with pen portraits that bring them alive and descriptions of places and events that draw the reader into a tale that literally spans the globe. Moore has a very helpful way with words that quickly allows a reader in the 21st century, where mobile connectivity and access to information is the norm for so many, to understand the magnitude of what was being achieved in what could be considered a far distant past that is difficult to relate to. To give an example, on page 88 he writes "Beaufort's Hydrographic Department would become the nineteenth-century equivalent of NASA. On behalf of the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth he was conducting explorations at the very edge of human knowledge." Such a comparison across the centuries brings to the reader, in just two sentences, the magnitude of the work being conducted for its time.This is no dry historic screed nor a baffling, jargon laden plunge into science. It is a potentially complex tale very understandably told with individual strands expertly teased out and then carefully interwoven into a narrative I found hard to put down. It tells of characters from the past involved in science, industry, exploration and art, some familiar and some not so. Moore does an admirable job of linking their achievements without losing the thrust of the overall story.A few days ago I left my bed at just past 1AM and headed into the basement due to a tornado warning for the vicinity of my home. An hour later a number of houses a few miles away had been wrecked but, due to the warning, no lives lost. Thanks to this book I now know of those to whom I owe an historic debt of thanks for such a warning.I gave this review four stars as Amazon seems to be plagued with more five star reviews than there are stars in the night sky. I know fellow avid readers who are now not even bothering to read them any more as it is wastefully time consuming to wade through the reviews that seem to be planted by those with commercial interests in the product or those written by 'fans' who seem to live in a stark world of brilliant/rubbish dichotomy. I enjoyed this book very much. It is one of the best non-fiction books I have read in the last twelve months - and I read a lot. However, I hope a four star review will be seen by anyone whose curiosity is aroused by this book to be an attempt at a thoughtful, balanced and ultimately helpful review.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful. Terrific read about the birth of the science of meteorology By Kevin W. Parker I've read a lot in the history of science, so most of the time when I start reading a new book much of it is familiar. Not so here: other than a passing mention of the Lunar Society, this was almost all new to me. The focus is on the development of the science of meteorology in the 19th century, and the protagonist is a surprising one: Admiral Robert FitzRoy, best known to history as the captain of the Beagle during Charles Darwin's epochal voyage. FitzRoy most often gets cast as the creationist foil to Darwin the hero of science, but that's far from the full story. He was a superb seaman, captaining the Beagle for the five-year expedition around the world without losing a man, a mast, or a sail to the elements.Decades later, after retiring from active service, he was given charge of a new department that would eventually become the modern Met Office. There, he pioneered means of collecting weather information and disseminating storm warnings, thereby saving thousands of lives.But FitzRoy is far from the only character profiled here. The American William Redfield made the first breakthroughs in the analysis of the storms we now know as hurricanes, and was the first to determine that their winds moved in spiral fashion. He jousted with rival James P. Espy, another American, who claimed a chimney model of air circulation, where winds would converge on a center and then go upward. Redfield triumphed in scientific opinion while they were both alive, though we know today that they were both right and that it's the Coriolis effect that makes the converging winds spin.James Glaisher was another pioneer of meteorology, though working for the Royal Astronomer. His carefully instrument balloon flights provided a wealth of information.Francis Galton - a half-cousin of Charles Darwin and likewise a grandson of Erasmus Darwin - discovered the anticyclone, high-pressure systems which were the counterpoint to low-pressure systems like hurricanes, as well as creating the first weather map. He was also critical of FitzRoy, believing his forecasts overreached what was scientifically possible at the time.I could go on: George Airy, Francis Beaufort, William Herschel, and many more have parts in this tapestry. For me, it was a fascinating read, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the history of science.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful. How We Came to Understand Weather By Rob Hardy It is summer, and where I live that means not only hot weather but strong storms, some of which do not come in an orderly front from the west but pop up with seeming randomness. We often check the Weather Channel on such days to see the radar map and get the forecast, and we take being able to do so for granted. The ability to map the weather and to make predictions, however, are skills that people acquired only after many years of effort. How this came to be is the inspiring story in _The Weather Experiment: The Pioneers Who Sought to See the Future_ (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) by Peter Moore. It is a sympathetic history of researchers, inventors, and explorers who challenged basic assumptions about not just weather but the way the universe worked, and who made it all a little more comprehensible.The thermometer and the barometer helped to bring some sort of order to understanding the weather, and people realized that observation and data were going to lead to better comprehension than trying to guess at divine intention. Luke Howard classified the clouds in 1803, and a few years later, the naval officer Francis Beaufort invented the Beaufort Scale, which (with some adjustments) is still used to rank the strength of winds from 0 to 12. The tragic star of the book is Admiral Robert FitzRoy, remembered these days for being the captain of the HMS _Beagle_ on the voyage that was to give Charles Darwin his insights on evolution. FitzRoy was a brilliant seaman and leader. In 1854 he was appointed to an ad hoc department devoted to collecting weather reports from ships at sea. A huge amount of data was newly available, and FitzRoy arranged for it to be categorized and sorted. He understood that being able to tell when a storm was coming would be of inestimable value to sailors and to landsmen, and he began to issue daily weather reports, and predictions that he labelled “forecasts.” People liked getting these, but they remembered the predictions of storms that never came or those of clear days that actually turned stormy more than they remembered when the forecasts were accurate. FitzRoy, and the government, came under criticism, some of it caustic, for the inaccuracy of the forecasts, although like any good weatherman, FitzRoy explained (in letters to the _Times_) that the forecasts were “expressions of probabilities - and not dogmatic predictions.” Always a man of unpredictable mood changes, but overworked and over-criticized, he killed himself in 1865. The government stopped the forecasts, only to find that whether they were accurate or not, they were valued by sailors and those ashore, and had to be reinstated.FitzRoy had been on the right track, but did not have the theory (nor the computing power) that came available for our current forecasts. Maybe if he had taken the tactic of forecasters nowadays and given percentage forecasts for storms (which can only be definitively wrong if the weatherman rashly declares either 100% or 0% chance of occurrence), distrust of his predictions might not have brought him down. His is a great, tragic story of a scientist who was right but unappreciated; his ideal of forecasts by a public weather service is now integral to our daily lives. Moore’s appreciation of FitzRoy’s contributions help ensure that he is not just a footnote to Darwin’s great story, and fits him properly within meteorological progress that took centuries. After all, even the Weather Channel makes a bad call now and then, and as the _Old Farmer’s Almanac_ always says in every issue, “Neither we nor any other forecasters have as yet gained sufficient insight into the mysteries of the universe to predict the weather with total accuracy.” Here is the engaging story of how that insight, always partial, began.
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