The shaping of climate science: half a century in personal perspective

Abstract

Abstract. The paper traces my career as a climatologist from the 1950s and that of most of my graduate students from the late 1960s. These decades were the formative ones in the evolution of climate science. Following a brief account of the history of climatology, a summary of my early training, my initial teaching and research in the UK is discussed. This is followed by new directions at the University of Colorado, Boulder from October 1968. The history of the World Data Center for Glaciology/National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder from 1977 is described and climate-cryosphere initiatives at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES). International activities and links are then reported, followed by a section on national and international committees. I then describe my activities during sabbaticals and research leaves. The paper concludes with discussion of my "retirement" activities and an epilogue.

Climate state: Science-state struggles and the formation of climate science in the US from the 1930s to 1960s

“…Only with hindsight have scientists and historians argued that these early scientists' work initiated a shared trajectory (Bolin, 2007;Weart, 2008). 'Climatology' and 'climate science' are today often discussed interchangeably (Barry, 2015;Nuccitelli, 2015), yet through the mid-twentieth century climatology remained rooted in descriptive statistical methods that generally treated climate as a normalized, relatively static characteristic of a given area. The topic of climate was basically a subspecialty among geographers and a subordinated concern among meteorologists (Bryson, 1997;Landsberg, 1941;Leighly, 1954).…”