Podcast
99% Invisible
The author discussed the evolution of weather forecasting, from early telegraph networks to the modern global system, and highlighted the challenges posed by privatization and climate change.
His basic equations, which are now kind of known in meteorology as the primitive equations, which I kind of love.
— Episode: The Weather Machine
Episode: The Weather Machine
The author discussed the evolution of weather forecasting, from early telegraph networks to the modern global system, and highlighted the challenges posed by privatization and climate change.
His basic equations, which are now kind of known in meteorology as the primitive equations, which I kind of love.
He neither had enough observations, especially at different levels of altitude and high up into the atmosphere, nor could he solve the differential equations required to sort of, you know, solve his own equations.
He was convinced that if he had better observations, and if he had a greater ability to actually make these calculations, you could have a useful forecast.
And it wasn't until the postwar era when you have the beginnings of spaceflight and the beginnings of real computing that the idea of actually functionally creating a weather forecast based on mathematical analysis of the atmosphere becomes possible again.
The most important thing is you have this kind of love affair with the Earth, you know, with the Earth as a planet.