One hundred years ago, a remarkable book was published by Cambridge University Press. It was a commercial flop: although the print run was just 750 copies, it was still in print thirty years later. Yet, it held the key to forecasting the weather by scientific means. The book, Weather Prediction by Numerical Process, was written by Lewis Fry Richardson, a brilliant, eccentric mathematician. He described in detail how the mathematical equations that govern the evolution of the atmosphere could be solved by numerical means to deduce future weather conditions from a set of observations [TM230 or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com].
Continue reading ‘A Prescient Vision of Modern Weather Forecasting’