Weather vs. Climate Data With the power and influence of the mutual orientation of scientists, military, and businesses on accurate forecasting of weather, climate scientists have a long history of frustration with the overwhelming focus of the global observing system on forecasting. Many of them feel that operational agencies mostly ignored climatology’s needs until quite […]

  According to Edwards, climatology in the 1960s and 1970s shifted from “data-driven, regionally oriented, descriptive field” to “theory-driven, globally oriented discipline increasingly focused on forecasting the future” (2010:139). This shift was created by scientists in theoretical meteorology and computer scientists at a small number of elite research institutions, who were able to use powerful […]

  Qualitative modeling Prior to World War I, climatology was dominated by qualitative approach and regional studies. Until the 1930s, almost all the weather and climate data were collected at the surface – there was little atmospheric data. Furthermore, scientists at that time did not really understand large-scale atmospheric movements. Edwards in this chapter goes […]