Meteorology is the scientific study of the atmosphere that focuses on weather processes and forecasting. Meteorological phenomena are observable weather events which illuminate and are explained by the science of meteorology. Those events are bound by the variables that exist in Earth's atmosphere. They are temperature, pressure, water vapor, and the gradients and interactions of each variable, and how they change in time. The majority of Earth's observed weather is located in the troposphere.
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Country Reviews for Traveling
Two things you need to do before going to another country. Number one is check the weather, and number 2 is to do some basic research on the surrounding that you are about to enter. We have compiled basic reviews on pretty much every country in the world.
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Worldwide Cities of Interest for Traveling
Once you have your country of interest narrowed down, take a look at some of our worldwide city reviews. From Abilene to Vila Velha, take a moment and review the listings of the cities you'd like to visit most.
Africa
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North America
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South America
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History of Meteorology
The term meteorology goes back to the book Meteorologica (about 340 BC) by Aristotle, who combined observations with speculation as to the origin of celestial phenomena. The Greek word meteoron refers to things "high in the sky", that is between Earth and the realm of the stars, while logos means "study". A similar work, called "Book of Signs", was published by Theophrastus, a pupil of Aristotle. It was centered more on predicting the weather by interpreting established celestial phenomena, such as a halo around the moon, without asking for explanations.
Further progress in the meteorological field had to wait until accurate instruments were available. Galileo constructed a thermometer in 1607, followed by Torricelli's invention of the barometer in 1643. The dependence of atmospheric pressure on height was first shown by Blaise Pascal and René Descartes. The anemometer for measuring wind speed was constructed in 1667 by Robert Hooke, while Horace de Saussure completed this list of the most important meteorological instruments in 1780 with the hair hygrometer, which measures humidity.
Other advances that are usually thought of as part of the progression of physics were Robert Boyle's investigation of the dependence of gas volume on pressure which lead to thermodynamics and Benjamin Franklin's kite experiments with lightning. Franklin was also the first American to keep accurate and detailed records of weather conditions on a daily basis, and was one of the first Americans to forecast the weather on a daily basis.
The first overall correct explanation of global circulation was the 1735 study by George Hadley of the Trade Winds, which gave rise to calling the tropical cell of zonal mean atmospheric circulation the "Hadley cell". Understanding the kinematics of how exactly the rotation of the Earth affects airflow was partial at first. Late in the 19th century the full extent of the interaction of pressure gradient force and deflecting force that in the end causes air masses to move along isobars was understood. Early in the 20th century this deflecting force was named after Gaspard-Gustave Coriolis, who had published in 1835 on the energy yield of machines with rotating parts, such as waterwheels.
Synoptic weather observations were still hindered by the difficulty of establishing certain weather characteristics such as clouds or wind. These were solved when Luke Howard and Francis Beaufort introduced their systems for classifying clouds (1802) and wind speeds (1806), respectively. The real turning point however was the invention of the telegraph in 1843 that allowed exchange of weather information with unprecedented speed.
Early in the 20th century, theoretical studies of atmospheric phenomena usually were performed analytically, that is by taking the fluid-dynamical equations that govern atmospheric flow, simplifying them by neglecting lesser terms, and looking for solutions to these equations. For example, Vilhelm Bjerknes developed the model that explains the generation, intensification and ultimate decay (the life cycle) of midlatitude cyclones, introducing the idea of fronts, that is, sharply defined boundaries between air masses.
Starting in the 1950s, numerical experiments with computers became feasible. The first weather forecasts derived this way used barotropic (that means, single-vertical-level) models, and could successfully predict the large-scale movement of midlatitude Rossby waves, that is, the pattern of atmospheric lows and highs.
In the 1960s, the chaotic nature of the atmosphere was first understood by Edward Lorenz, founding the field of chaos theory. The mathematical advances achieved here later filtered back to meteorology and made it possible to describe the limits of predictability inherent in atmospheric modelling. This is known as the butterfly effect, because the growth of disturbances over time means that even one as minute as the flapping of a butterfly's wings could much later cause a large disturbance to form somewhere else.
In 1960, the launch of TIROS-1, the first successful weather satellite marked the beginning of the age where weather information is available globally. Weather satellites along with more general-purpose Earth-observing satellites circling the earth at various altitudes have become an indispensable tool for studying a wide range of phenomena from forest fires to El Niño.
In recent years, climate models have been developed that feature a resolution comparable to older weather prediction models. These climate models are used to investigate long-term climate shifts, such as what effects might be caused by human emission of greenhouse gases.
