Exploring contemporary amateur
meteorology through an historical lens
Georgina Endfield and Carol Morris
School of Geography, University of Nottingham
1st National Amateur Observers Symposium
University of Reading, September 4th-5th 2010
Aims
• To explore contemporary amateur
meteorology through an historical lens
• To investigate the continuities and
discontinuities in amateur meteorology
(institutions and individual practices)
Rationale
1. Modern amateurism as a type of ‘serious leisure’:
“the systematic pursuit of an amateur, hobbyist, or volunteer activity
that is sufficiently substantial and interesting for the participant to find
a career there in the acquisition and expression of its special skills
and knowledge” (Stebbins, 1992, p.3).
• Contemporary social scientific research on the modern
amateur pays cursory attention to history.
• Studies of modern amateurism might be usefully informed
by historical analysis of the traditions and practices of
amateurs in the past.
2. Our research goes some way to addressing calls for
investigations of what weather and climate mean to
different groups of people, particularly at the local level
(Hulme, 2008).
Outline
• Meteorological science in the UKprofessionalization and associated
amateurization – a brief overview.
• Selected themes illustrating continuities and
discontinuities in the practices and organisation
of contemporary amateur meteorology.
• Preliminary conclusions and plans for future
events.
Professionalisation and amateurisation
of meteorology in the UK
•
C17th –individual and idiosyncratic observation and recording
(private weather diaries, chronicles and sermons)
•
C19th– quantification and standardization; the ‘professionalization’ of
meteorology:
– April 1850 – founding of the British Meteorological Society
– 1854 - formation of the Meteorological Department of the Board
of Trade, later the Met Office.
•
Persistence/ formalisation of amateur interest
– e.g. 1823-1850 – the Meteorological Society of London
– e.g. 1858 – British Rainfall Organisation
•
Later C20th - new phase of ‘amateurization’ (Alberti, 2001)
– 1970 – formation of COL
– 1974 – formation of TORRO; Journal of Meteorology launched in
1975
– 1990s – formation of WON
The Climatological Observers Link:
key features and activities
•
•
N= 400; No of contributing
members: 318
Daily observation and recording
•
Annual meeting
•
Monthly bulletin
•
Regional sub-meetings
•
Informal meetings and exchanges
•
See Brugge R (2010) Forty years of
the Climatological Observers Link.
Weather, 65, 5: 139-143.
Continuities and discontinuities in
amateur meteorology: themes
• “A regular and exacting ritual”: discipline and routine
• “Flesh barometers” and weather wising: visual /
physical sensibilities
• “Duty bound”? Weather observing and public service
• “Well weather is not a girl thing is it?” Gender and
amateur meteorology
“A regular and exacting ritual”:
discipline and routine
“A regular and exacting ritual”:
discipline and routine
“Maximum and minimum temperatures, rainfall, humidity, atmospheric
pressure, wind speed and direction, mean wind speed …That is grass
minimum as well I collect that, air max, from that you can get a temperature
range, relative humidity, that is at 9am, 9 o’clock GMT... Minimum relative
humidity that is the lowest during the day. Pressure at 9 o’clock is recorded,
rain is recorded from 9 o’clock until 9 o’clock, although I do actually record
that at 9pm as well... Wet days are recorded, rain days, max wind speed,
mean wind speed, wind direction at 9 o’clock and again with such things as
wind speed you can get that direct from the automatic weather station, days
of thunder and days of hail, days of large hail, that is hail stones more than
0.5 millimetre in diameter, hail sleet and snow, ground frost, days of ground
frost, fog at 0900 and day frost, that is when the temperature has been
below freezing all day. The data I put in manually [into] a programme
[which] computes automatically the averages and the maximums and the
minimums and the totals of days at the bottom, so at the end of the month
when I am submitting data to COL I can just reel it off and then fill in the
respective tables with the COL bulletin” (COL member North West).
“A regular and exacting
ritual”: discipline and routine
• “I am looking at what it is doing from hour to hour, but
the main recordings are four times a day. I do first thing
in the morning which is always between 8.00am and
9.00am, if I am up earlier than that then I still do it
between 8.00am and 9.00am. I then do it between
12.00pm and 1.00pm and then between 6.00pm and
7.00pm and then last thing at night which can often be
midnight” (COL member, North West).
• “8, 12, 4, 8 and 10pm at night…I regularly look at it
seven times a day and check it” (COL member, South
East).
“A regular and exacting
ritual”: discipline and routine
• “A typical day is that after I have got up, circa 8.00am or
something like that, is to have my breakfast and then by
about 9.00am I am on the internet looking to see what
the weather is actually doing, that’s after I have seen the
TV, but I like to go and look myself. I tend to look at
several computer modules that are predicting up to
about 15 days with some of the American models. I can
easily be on then, then I have my observation to do as
well and I put that on (the computer), I can typically be
sat in front of the screen there for two hours looking at
weather related stuff, easily, every morning. I am often
shocked to find that it is almost 11am and I wonder
where the morning has gone and whether I should be
doing something else” (COL member, Midlands)
“Flesh barometers” and weather
wising: visual / physical sensibilities
“Flesh barometers”: knowing the
weather
• “I always say, you see, if you are walking down this lane
on a hot July day, you get a certain impression of the
temperature. It is not what you see using a Stephenson
screen, that is different, it is an artifice which is designed
to purely standardise the temperature measurements…”
(COL member, Midlands).
• “But you get to know what the weather is like, it is
probably about 6 out there at the minute” (COL member,
South East)
“Flesh barometers”: the significance
of the visual
•
“He has got a system so that you can tell if it is particularly thick
cloud or whether it is raining or drizzling and he is particularly
observant in terms of optical effects as well, noting in COL that there
will be a record of any interesting optical effects that people have
seen in terms of halos or whatever, there are quite a range of optical
effects which are interesting and have a good scientific base behind
them as well, but [name of observer] is obviously particularly
observant and he has got a good eye for anything in the sky and
that is obviously one of [name of observer] expertise…” (COL
member, North East).
•
“For all the technology, you cant beat a good pair of eyes to see
what is going on around and that is why even the Met Office are
calling on amateurs” (COL member, North West).
“Flesh barometers”: the significance
of the visual and the instrumental
•
“If you don’t look outside all the time you don’t see these things and there are
some COL members who would be happy to admit that their records are what
is on their PC screen or the internet page and you are missing it. The
instruments are there to back up what you see and if you are not looking out
you are missing it. On the other hand it is fantastic when it is chucking it
down with rain and you have fantastic heavy thunderstorms and I can sit in
here and watch it all and get a little wireless rain gauge from upstairs and I
can see what is going on without going out and getting wet. I don’t need to go
out and say ‘right we had nineteen millimetres in nine minutes’ and get
drenched measuring it, and I would probably lose a millimetre while
measuring it, so you know, it has its advantages. It really backs up the visual
aspects. But there are things that you would never see without instruments,
you can’t see changes in wind direction for example….. You have to be
observant but the instruments can quite often show you that when there is
nothing to see, so it is a question of using both. It is not instruments only or
visual only, they add to each other” (COL member, South East).
“Duty bound”?: Weather observing
and public service
There is “scarcely .. a town or large village
in the kingdom which would not afford a
correspondent, who would be willing to
transmit his observations to the society;
and thus many phenomena which had
been observed by some retired
meteorologist would become publicly
known and receive the attention which
might be due then” (Tatem, 20 April 1823,
Monthly Magazine)
“Duty bound”? Weather observing
and public service
• “They [COL members] are doing a huge amount of
public service...The COL records are as much the
national weather records as the Met Office records and
there are many more of them in interesting areas like
suburbs rather than airports. This is an important public
service and I think it is undervalued” (COL member,
South East).
• “I wanted them [the local paper] to have accurate data
because in the future if someone is going through these
papers to find out what the weather was like, I feel that at
least I have done my bit to make sure that it is
reasonably accurate. That gives me that bit of comfort
and that is something that individuals [in COL] can do”
(COL member, North West, emphasis added).
“Duty bound”? Weather observing
and public service
•
“I produce this monthly weather report and I have done every month,
somehow I always manage to get it out and I have done since I have been
here which is over three and a half years. A neighbour basically said ‘what
are you going to contribute to the village?’ …and I said ‘well, I will do a
monthly weather report’. Anyway, I got such good feedback from that and
so many people expressed an interest that I feel almost duty bound to do it
but it is a great pleasure … the number of people who have actually
expressed some thanks for it, well that is nice…..Also, I have been asked to
write for the parish magazine which I do every edition….(f)our times a year,
so I summarise the three months that have passed and I write about any
significant events like when we had a flash flood in the village a couple of
months ago, I highlighted that and described what had happened.…So yes,
I think I have got something like six outlets for weather nowadays. There is
COL, the village magazine, monthly weather report, environment agency,
rainfall network and then there is the fact that I am in charge of weather
programme at [a local – name given] observatory” (COL member, South
West)
“Well weather is not a girl thing is it?”:
gender and amateur meteorology
“Well weather is not a girl thing is
it?” Wives as “invisible technicians”
• “My wife would also do the observations for me if
I was away for any period of time at conferences
or whatever” (COL member, South East).
• “There is a point when you go on holiday but if I
am out [wife’s name] does it” (COL member,
Midlands).
“Well weather is not a girl thing is
it?”Train spotting, numbers / statistics
• “I would say that I do enjoy the numbers” (COL
member, North East).
• “it is a male thing although I don’t know why that
is. I think it is because we are in the same
category as train spotters, but maybe there are
certain things that do attract men” (COL
member, North East).
• “But then you don’t tend to get many women
trainspotting do you and I don’t know why” (COL
member, East Midlands).
“Well weather is not a girl thing is
it?” Men, control and science
•
“It is the measuring. Measuring and comparing seems to be a male
thing. But it is also fixing things and actually feeling as though they
are in control, getting hold of it and writing things down and plotting
and saying ‘that is it’, it is sort of aggressive and physical and there
is something different there between men and women, but why, that
should really be a kind of magic because weather is not exactly
gender based” (COL member, South West).
•
“Girls might be signing up to science without actually being
scientists and boys of course as well. If you were to take the
numbers 50 years ago I think they would all have been men wouldn’t
they” (COL member, Midlands).
Preliminary conclusions
• Potential of an historical approach
• Long history of amateur engagement in
meteorology; persistent individual interest;
ephemeral organisational representation
• Continuities and discontinuities in individual
amateur meteorological practices
• Phases of amateurization and deamateurization?
The next stage...
• Workshop on ‘The role of the amateur in
monitoring environmental change’, University of
Nottingham, November 9th 2010.
• Arts and Humanities Research Council research
network ‘The Cultural Spaces of Climate’;
– 3 forthcoming workshops in December 3rd 2010,
March 16th 2011 and June 25th 2011.
Thank you