How Do you Catch a Cloud?

The weather is a difficult thing to measure. Its moves, it changes, it’s big. And what is weather anyway?

From the Renaissance to global warming today, scientists have developed ingenious ways to record the changing skies. While Torricelli’s barometer has endured, other instruments have not, like the leech-based electrical “tempest prognosticator” built in 1851 by the appropriately-named George Merryweather.

This lecture explores four strategies that people have used to measure the weather: quantifying the air, mapping the weather, flying through the skies, and bouncing radiation off the clouds. Along the way, we’ll meet some of the interesting folks who have studied the skies.

While the weather instruments scientists have developed are remarkable, history shows the secret to measuring weather ultimately lies in combining instruments with innovative social organizations managed by government bureaucrats.

Thanks to the Mercer Museum and Fonthill Castle for inviting me to share these stories.