Seeing into the Future

Seeing into the Future
Author: Martin van Creveld
Publisher: Reaktion Books
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2020-09-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 1789142296

The ability to predict the future is essential to modern life. Planning for population growth or changes in weather patterns or forecasting demand for products and managing inventories would be impossible without it. But how have people through the ages gone about making predictions? What were their underlying assumptions, and what methods did they use? Have increased computer power and the newest algorithms improved our success in anticipating the future, or are we still only as good (or as bad) as our ancestors bent over their auguries? From the ancients watching the flight of birds to the murky activities of Google and Facebook today, Seeing into the Future provides vital insight into the past, present, and—of course—future of prediction.

Make It Rain

Make It Rain
Author: Kristine C. Harper
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2018-06-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 022659792X

Weather control. Juxtaposing those two words is enough to raise eyebrows in a world where even the best weather models still fail to nail every forecast, and when the effects of climate change on sea level height, seasonal averages of weather phenomena, and biological behavior are being watched with interest by all, regardless of political or scientific persuasion. But between the late nineteenth century—when the United States first funded an attempt to “shock” rain out of clouds—and the late 1940s, rainmaking (as it had been known) became weather control. And then things got out of control. In Make It Rain, Kristine C. Harper tells the long and somewhat ludicrous history of state-funded attempts to manage, manipulate, and deploy the weather in America. Harper shows that governments from the federal to the local became helplessly captivated by the idea that weather control could promote agriculture, health, industrial output, and economic growth at home, or even be used as a military weapon and diplomatic tool abroad. Clear fog for landing aircraft? There’s a project for that. Gentle rain for strawberries? Let’s do it! Enhanced snowpacks for hydroelectric utilities? Check. The heyday of these weather control programs came during the Cold War, as the atmosphere came to be seen as something to be defended, weaponized, and manipulated. Yet Harper demonstrates that today there are clear implications for our attempts to solve the problems of climate change.

Predicting the Weather

Predicting the Weather
Author: Katharine Anderson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 342
Release: 2010-11-15
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0226019705

Victorian Britain, with its maritime economy and strong links between government and scientific enterprises, founded an office to collect meteorological statistics in 1854 in an effort to foster a modern science of the weather. But as the office turned to prediction rather than data collection, the fragile science became a public spectacle, with its forecasts open to daily scrutiny in the newspapers. And meteorology came to assume a pivotal role in debates about the responsibility of scientists and the authority of science. Studying meteorology as a means to examine the historical identity of prediction, Katharine Anderson offers here an engrossing account of forecasting that analyzes scientific practice and ideas about evidence, the organization of science in public life, and the articulation of scientific values in Victorian culture. In Predicting the Weather, Anderson grapples with fundamental questions about the function, intelligibility, and boundaries of scientific work while exposing the public expectations that shaped the practice of science during this period. A cogent analysis of the remarkable history of weather forecasting in Victorian Britain, Predicting the Weather will be essential reading for scholars interested in the public dimensions of science.

Global Warming

Global Warming
Author: David Archer
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2011-09-21
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0470943416

Archer's Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast 2nd Edition, is the first real text to present the science and policy surrounding climate change at the right level. Accompanying videos, simulations and instructional support makes it easier to build a syllabus to improve and create new material on climate change. Archer's polished writing style makes the text entertaining while the improved pedagogy helps better understand key concepts, ideas and terms. This edition has been revised and reformulated with a new chapter template of short chapter introductions, study questions at the end, and critical thinking puzzlers throughout. Also a new asset for the BCS was created that will give ideas for assignments and topics for essays and other projects. Furthermore, a number of interactive models have been built to help understand the science and systems behind the processes.

Looking Forward

Looking Forward
Author: Jamie L. Pietruska
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2017-12-08
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 022647500X

Introduction: crisis of certainty -- Cotton guesses -- The daily "probabilities"--Weather prophecies -- Economies of the future -- Promises of love and money -- Epilogue: specters of uncertainty

Business Cycles

Business Cycles
Author: Victor Zarnowitz
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 613
Release: 2007-11-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0226978923

This volume presents the most complete collection available of the work of Victor Zarnowitz, a leader in the study of business cycles, growth, inflation, and forecasting.. With characteristic insight, Zarnowitz examines theories of the business cycle, including Keynesian and monetary theories and more recent rational expectation and real business cycle theories. He also measures trends and cycles in economic activity; evaluates the performance of leading indicators and their composite measures; surveys forecasting tools and performance of business and academic economists; discusses historical changes in the nature and sources of business cycles; and analyzes how successfully forecasting firms and economists predict such key economic variables as interest rates and inflation.

Politics, Statistics and Weather Forecasting, 1840-1910

Politics, Statistics and Weather Forecasting, 1840-1910
Author: Aitor Anduaga
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 440
Release: 2019-07-12
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1000145069

Weather forecasting is the most visible branch of meteorology and has its modern roots in the nineteenth century when scientists redefined meteorology in the way weather forecasts were made, developing maps of isobars, or lines of equal atmospheric pressure, as the main forecasting tool. This book is the history of how weather forecasting was moulded and modelled by the processes of nation-state building and statistics in the Western world.