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Federation and MeteorologyBureau of Meteorology
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Table of Contents

The Case of Meteorology, 1876-1908

Introduction

Early Colonial Weather Reporting

The Impact of the Telegraph

Beginnings of Intercolonial Co-operation

The Intercolonial Meteorological Conferences

The Role of Clement Wragge

Towards a Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology

Conclusion

Acknowledgements

Endnotes

Index
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The Intercolonial Meteorological Conferences (continued)

The discussions at the first conference had made everyone more aware of the need for greater standardization of instruments and methods of measurement. Hector, Todd and Ellery reported experiments on measuring temperatures, comparing readings obtained with thermometers shaded by different structures or swung in the open air. The conference still did not reach a decision, however, on a standard method of exposure, it being agreed that yet more work was needed.[69] Experiments were also reported on the measurement of evaporation rates and of wind speed and direction, and on the inter-comparability of different forms of black-bulb thermometer. Rain gauges were again discussed. The need to use standard gauges of 8-inch collecting diameter was reaffirmed, and they now declared that the height of the mouth of the gauge above the ground should be specified. To combat the sale of inaccurately made gauges, they agreed to provide a free certification service.[70] They agreed with Todd that 'a complete set of standard instruments'—comprising barometer, thermometer, maximum solar thermometer and anemometer—should be purchased and circulated between the chief observing stations of the four colonies, enabling the instruments at the stations to be standardized against them.

They also agreed on various matters relating to the handling of observational data; for example, how daily mean temperatures were to be calculated, the scale and projection to be used in daily weather maps, and details to be included in published meteorological statistics. Above all, they formally resolved to adopt the method isobaric analysis that had for some years been standard in Europe and North America. Hector, who introduced the resolution, reported that his office had been preparing daily isobaric maps and issuing forecasts based upon them.[71] He pointed out that doing this 'depended upon the assumption that the deductions which had led to the adoption of the isobaric system in the Northern hemisphere were applicable to these colonies', but immediately added that 'he considered that the work done in New Zealand since 1877 had completely established that proposition'.[72] Though Russell concurred on the value of analysis by means of isobars, he had not yet adopted them 'because he had felt that the observatories were not sufficiently numerous to enable us to trace the lines'. Now, he said, with a steadily increasing number of stations reporting, and with New Zealand and Tasmania about to join the scheme, he would be happy to do so. Todd indicated that he had been drawing isobars for some time but had not published the results, feeling, like Russell, that 'they rested upon insufficient data, owing to the fewness of barometric stations'. Ellery, finally, said that, seventeen years before (that is, during Neumayer's period in Melbourne),

work was done at the Melbourne Observatory in drawing curves from logs of ships and tracing out the isobars. This was continued for nearly two years [and] was only given up because there was not a sufficient number of observing stations in Australia to carry on the system. He thought it could now be carried out, and therefore supported the motion.

Such remarks make it clear that the system of intercolonial co-operation was central to this critical technical development in Austra-lasian meteorology, which meteorologists everywhere now agreed was the best way of tracking weather. The co-operative system provided what all agreed was essential if meaningful isobars were to be drawn in the Australian case, namely more reporting stations.


People in Bright Sparcs - Ellery, Robert Lewis John; Neumayer, Georg Balthazar; Russell, Henry Chamberlain; Todd, Charles

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Home, R. W. and Livingston, K. T. 1994 'Science and Technology in the Story of Australian Federation: The Case of Meteorology, 1876-1908', Historical Records of Australian Science, vol. 10, no. 2, December 1994, pp. 109-27.

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