Changing importance of weather during the 20^th century

Stan Changnon
Illinois State Water Survey
schangno@uiuc.edu

The 20th century saw major changes in how the nation views the importance of weather and the value of weather-related information. While society once had an implicit belief in the importance of weather, it now has an explicit need to define that value in economic, societal, and environmental terms. This major shift affects how atmospheric sciences will be conducted, how much financial support for research and operations will be provided, and how much public and policy acceptance and use of meteorological information there will be.

When the 20th century dawned, society had very little practical weather information. Weather could be very deadly, and forecasts were at best an art, not a science. Consequently, weather-related death tolls were enormous: 6,000 (1901 hurricane at Galveston, Texas), 685 (1925 tornado in Illinois), and 1,100 (1927 floods along the lower Mississippi River).

The fledgling science of meteorology evolved slowly during the early decades of the 20th century. Weather information's shift from an agricultural orientation to an aviation and business focus occurred during the 1930s, as reflected by the transfer of the U.S. Weather Bureau from the Department of Agriculture to the Department of Commerce. The emergence of commercial aviation and its need to know existing and future weather conditions fueled the demand for weather forecasting and forecasters. Science and the necessary forecasting tools were also developing rapidly.

World War II had a profound influence on meteorology. Suddenly there was an enormous need to know the state of the weather in many parts of the world, including climatic conditions where troops were headed in Africa, Asia, and Europe. Military operations required information about the state of the weather at the front, and desperately sought weather predictions. This huge demand for weather expertise also created a need for meteorologists, principally forecasters. Hundreds of persons trained in other disciplines had to take weather training. The number of meteorologists jumped from a few hundred in 1940 to thousands by 1946. Of course, the value of weather information was obvious and did not require measurement.

Major droughts during the 1950s led to attempts to make rain through cloud seeding. Successful fog suppression efforts during WWII were sufficient to lead to a growing belief that humans could somehow control the weather. The potential for modifying weather became a new focus of government weather research, along with forecasting, in the late 1950s and 1960s.

Profound, fundamental societal changes in the 1960s led to major revisions in public views about the value and importance of weather. The emerging environmental movement expressed great concern about human impacts on the environment, including air pollution and cloud seeding. Although meteorologists had previously assumed that "If we could change the weather, it would benefit everyone," studies of economic effects showed this assumption to be fallacious. Another fundamental change during the 1960s was the end of essentially unlimited government funding for weather research. A tightened federal pocketbook meant that scientists now had to compete for funds against hundreds of other major demands on government resources, including those of other sciences. This led to the realization that scientists needed to define the value of weather and how weather science could benefit society and the environment.

In essence, the events of the 1960s and 1970s ended the era of implicit belief in the value of weather. Unfortunately, most meteorologists believed that weather was an all-important societal issue and were not prepared to define its value and defend what they were doing by working with economists and scientists of other disciplines. Additionally, technological advances in weather-sensitive industries such as agriculture, transportation, and heating and air conditioning made society less vulnerable to many vagaries of everyday weather conditions. Citizens became less concerned about weather than they had been in 1900 or 1930. Vast improvements in storm forecasting allowed society to make informed decisions, reducing deaths due to weather events. Many of the every day problems due to weather had disappeared.

Since the 1970s, a few interdisciplinary groups have tackled the issue of defining weather impacts, but the human and financial commitment has been meager. What is clear as the 20th century ends is that atmospheric scientists must define the value of weather, including weather data and information. For example, responsible action in response to global climate change rests heavily on correctly ascertaining the impacts of future climates. Highly accurate long-term forecasts generated during the 1997-1998 El Nino provided new insights about the vast value of long-range predictions and the widely different economic impacts of anomalous weather conditions.

During the 20th century, meteorology has been very successful in reducing weather-related deaths, as well as minimizing many detrimental effects of day-to-day weather conditions. As we enter the 21st century, atmospheric sciences are competing with many other societal issues for visibility and support. The field of meteorology cannot go forward sensibly into the 21st century without credible information on weather's economic, societal, and environmental impacts. Policymakers at all levels now insist on such information; environmentalists seek definitive information on how weather and climate affect ecosystems; and members of society want meaningful information about how weather affects their lives and the global economy.

— Stan Changnon
Illinois State Water Survey
schangno@uiuc.edu

Comments? thunder@ucar.edu

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