All Our Yesterdays

Sixty years ago, on this day, November 2nd, 1965,

Soon after I arrived on 1st October, I became impressed that the experimental forecasts for aircraft crossing  the Atlantic were systematically more accurate than traditional forecasts based on extrapolation of time  sequences of hand-drawn charts.  Accordingly I decided, against the advice of some senior colleagues,  who favoured a longer trial period that the numerical forecasts would be issued routinely twice a day from  Monday, 2nd November 1965.  The Press and TV were invited to witness this landmark in the history of  the Met Office and gave it wide coverage.  Fortunately the first forecast was excellent and ushered in a  new era in which weather forecasts were to become objective exercises in mathematical physics replacing  the empirical methods that, for more than a century, had depended on the skill and experience of the  individual human forecaster. 

Mason memoir  

and

By carefully stage-managing the public performance of a new,  computer-driven meteorology, new claims of objectivity could be made, with public credibility  and social authority at stake.37 Thus, on the same day as the inauguration of numerical forecasts,  Mason presided over the Office’s first-ever press conference, where he proclaimed a new dawn  in weather forecasting – a move which his deputy, A.C. Best, thought to be a “great risk” for the  office’s reputation.38 While much of the credibility economy which Shapin describes concerns  scientific claims where virtual witnesses have no direct access themselves to the phenomena in  question, the success and credibility of weather forecasting is easily adjudicated on by anybody  who cares to look out of the window. Standing before more than 100 journalists and cameramen  from the BBC, national newspapers and the technical press, Mason marked the introduction of  numerical weather forecasting in the UK with great confidence: “Today is a landmark in the  history of forecasting in the Office”, he declared, “because this afternoon you will see the  production of our first routine numerical weather forecast by the computer”.39 Britain, he continued in his first push to build social authority in the Meteorological Office, could now look  forward to increasingly accurate weather forecasts underpinned by modern, objective  technologies. As the press gallery watched the Meteorological Office’s line printer slowly  produce the UK’s first routine numerical forecasting chart, Mason patiently answered questions  for nearly an hour and then distributed souvenir copies of the chart to all attendees. The  formalities over, the press gallery toured the Central Forecasting Office at Bracknell and chatted  over coffee with senior members of Mason’s staff. 

2017 Maartin-Nielsen – 

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 320ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.

The broader context was the Met Office had not delivered warnings about a particular cold winter in 1962, and had copped some flak for that, because US meteorologists had warned about it.

The specific context was that new boss, John Mason wanted to move things along, and take advantage of new computers etc.

What I think we can learn from this – the forecasts we now accept as normal required a hell of a lot of work, and some institutional risk-taking.

What happened next

Mason was keen to move things along (the man was dynamic but backed the wrong horse on carbon dioxide and never changed course). He was a major block on “early” action (e.g. at the First World Climate Conference).

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

Also on this day: 

November 2, 1957 – “Our Coal Fires are melting the poles” Birmingham Post 

November 2, 1972 – “Eco-pornography … Advertising owns Ecology”…

November 2, 1994 – Greenpeace vs climate risk for corporates… 

November 2, 2006 – “RIP C02” says New Scientist

November 2, 2009 – , Australian opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull seals own doom by not bending knee to shock jock