IELTS LISTENING
The History Of Weather Forecasting
Lecturer: In this series of lectures about the history of weather forecasting, I’ll start by examining its early history that will be the subject of today’s talk. Okay, so we’ll start by going back thousands of years. Most ancient cultures had weather gods on DH, whether catastrophes such as floods played an important role in many creation myths generally, whether was attributed to the whims of the gods as the wide range of weather gods in various culture. Cher’s shows, for instance, there’s the Egyptian sun God rot on DH thought, the north gold of thunder and lightning. Many ancient civilizations Developed writes such as Q31 dances in order to make the weather gods look kindly on them.
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But the weather was off daily importance. Observing the skies and drawing the correct conclusions from these observations was really important. In fact, their Q32 survival depended on it. It isn’t known when people first started to observe the skies, but at around 650 BC The Babylonian Sze produced the first short-range weather forecasts based on their observations of Q33 clouds on DH. Other phenomena. The Chinese also recognised weather patterns on by 300 BC Astronomers had developed a calendar which divided the year into 24 Q34 festivals, each associated with a different weather phenomenon.
The ancient Greeks were the first to develop a more scientific approach to explaining the weather. The work of the philosopher and scientist Aristotle in the fourth century BC is especially noteworthy as his ideas held sway for nearly 2000 years. In 340 BC, He wrote a book in which he attempted to account for the formation of rain clouds wind on DH storms. He also described celestial phenomena such as halos that is bright circles of light around the sun, the moon, and bright stars on DH Q35 comets.
Many of his observations were surprisingly accurate. For example, he believed that heat could cause water to evaporate. But he also jumped to quite a few wrong conclusions, such as that winds are breathed out by the earth. Errors like this were rectified from the Renaissance onwards for nearly 2000 years, Aristotle’s work was accepted as the chief authority on weather theory. Alongside this, though, in the Middle Ages, whether observations were passed on in the form of proverbs such as red Q36 sky at night, Shepherd’s delight red sky in the Morning, and Shepherd’s warning.
Many of these are based on very good observations on are accurate. As contemporary meteorologists have discovered for centuries. Any attempt to forecast the weather could only be based on personal observations, But in the 15th century, scientists began to see the need for Q37 instruments. Until then, the only ones available were weathervanes to determine the wind direction on DH early versions of rain gauges. One of the first invented in the 15th century was a high Graham Attar, which measured humidity. This was one of many inventions that contributed to the development of weather forecasting. In 15 92 the Italian scientist and inventor Galileo developed the world’s first Q38 thermometer His student, Torricelli, later invented the Barone emitter, which allowed people to measure atmospheric pressure. In 16 48 the French philosopher Pascal proved that pressure decreases with altitude. This discovery was verified by English astronomer Halley in 16 86 and Holly was also the first person to map trade winds. This increasing ability to measure factors related to weather helped scientists to understand the atmosphere and its process is better. Andi. They started collecting whether observation data systematically in the 18th century, the scientists and politician Benjamin Franklin carried out work on electricity and lightning in particular. But he was also very interested in weather and studied it. Throughout most of his life, it was Franklin who discovered that Q39 storms generally travel from west to east. In addition to new meteorological instruments. Other developments contributed to our understanding of the atmosphere. People in different locations began to keep records, and in the mid-19th century, the invention of the Q40 telegraphs made it possible for these records to be collected. This led by the end of the 19th century to the first weather services. It was not until the early 20th century that mathematics and physics became part of meteorology on DH. We’ll continue from that point next week.