The timeline of meteorology contains events of scientific and technological advancements in the area of atmospheric sciences. The most notable advancements in observational meteorology, weather forecasting, climatology, atmospheric chemistry, and atmospheric physics are listed chronologically. Some historical weather events are included that mark time periods where advancements were made, or even that sparked policy change.
Antiquity 3000 BC – Meteorology in India can be traced back to around 3000 BC, with writings such as the Upanishads, containing discussions about the processes of cloud formation and rain and the seasonal cycles caused by the movement of the Earth around the Sun. 600 BC – Thales may qualify as the first Greek meteorologist. He reputedly issues the first seasonal crop forecast. 400 BC – There is some evidence that Democritus predicted changes in the weather, and that he used this ability to convince people that he could predict other future events. 400 BC – Hippocrates writes a treatise called Airs, Waters and Places, the earliest known work to include a discussion of weather. More generally, he wrote about common diseases that occur in particular locations, seasons, winds and air. 350 BC – The Greek philosopher Aristotle writes Meteorology, a work which represents the sum of knowledge of the time about Earth sciences, including weather and climate. It is the first known work that attempts to treat a broad range of meteorological topics. For the first time, precipitation and the clouds from which precipitation falls are called meteors, which originate from the Greek word meteoros, meaning 'high in the sky'. From that word comes the modern term meteorology, the study of clouds and weather. Although the term meteorology is used today to describe a subdiscipline of the atmospheric sciences, Aristotle's work is more general. Meteorologica is based on intuition and simple observation, but not on what is now considered the scientific method. In his own words: ...all the affections we may call common to air and water, and the kinds and parts of the earth and the affections of its parts.
The magazine De Mundo (attributed to Pseudo-Aristotle) notes: Cloud is a vaporous mass, concentrated and producing water. Rain is produced from the compression of a closely condensed cloud, varying according to the pressure exerted on the cloud; when the pressure is slight it scatters gentle drops; when it is great it produces a more violent fall, and we call this a shower, being heavier than ordinary rain, and forming continuous masses of water falling over earth. Snow is produced by the breaking up of condensed clouds, the cleavage taking place before the change into water; it is the process of cleavage which causes its resemblance to foam and its intense whiteness, while the cause of its coldness is the congelation of the moisture in it before it is dispersed or rarefied. When snow is violent and falls heavily we call it a blizzard. Hail is produced when snow becomes densified and acquires impetus for a swifter fall from its close mass; the weight becomes greater and the fall more violent in proportion to the size of the broken fragments of cloud. Such then are the phenomena which occur as the result of moist exhalation. One of the most impressive achievements in Meteorology is his description of what is now known as the hydrologic cycle: Now the sun, moving as it does, sets up processes of change and becoming and decay, and by its agency the finest and sweetest water is every day carried up and is dissolved into vapour and rises to the upper region, where it is condensed again by the cold and so returns to the earth.
Several years after Aristotle's book, his pupil Theophrastus puts together a book on weather forecasting called The Book of Signs. Various indicators such as solar and lunar halos formed by high clouds are presented as ways to forecast the weather. The combined works of Aristotle and Theophrastus have such authority they become the main influence in the study of clouds, weather and weather forecasting for nearly 2000 years. 250 BC – Archimedes studies the concepts of buoyancy and the hydrostatic principle. Positive buoyancy is necessary for the formation of convective clouds (cumulus, cumulus congestus and cumulonimbus). 25 AD – Pomponius Mela, a geographer for the Roman Empire, formalizes the climatic zone system. c. 80 AD – In his Lunheng (論衡; Critical Essays), the Han dynasty Chinese philosopher Wang Chong (27–97 AD) dispels the Chinese myth of rain coming from the heavens, and states that rain is evaporated from water on the earth into the air and forms clouds, stating that clouds condense into rain and also form dew, and says when the clothes of people in high mountains are moistened, this is because of the air-suspended rain water.Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 3, Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth. Taipei: Caves Books Ltd. However, Wang Chong supports his theory by quoting a similar one of Gongyang Gao's, the latter's commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals, the Gongyang Zhuan, compiled in the 2nd century BC, showing that the Chinese conception of rain evaporating and rising to form clouds goes back much farther than Wang Chong. Wang Chong wrote: As to this coming of rain from the mountains, some hold that the clouds carry the rain with them, dispersing as it is precipitated (and they are right). Clouds and rain are really the same thing. Water evaporating upwards becomes clouds, which condense into rain, or still further into dew.
Middle Ages 500 AD – In around 500 AD, the Indian astronomer, mathematician, and astrologer: Varāhamihira published his work Brihat-Samhita's, which provides clear evidence that a deep knowledge of atmospheric processes existed in the Indian region. 7th century – The poet Kalidasa in his epic Meghaduta, mentions the date of onset of the south-west Monsoon over central India and traces the path of the monsoon clouds. 7th century – St. Isidore of Seville, in his work De Rerum Natura, writes about astronomy, cosmology and meteorology. In the chapter dedicated to Meteorology, he discusses the thunder, clouds, rainbows and wind. 9th century – Al-Kindi (Alkindus), an Arab naturalist, writes a treatise on meteorology entitled Risala fi l-Illa al-Failali l-Madd wa l-Fazr (Treatise on the Efficient Cause of the Flow and Ebb), in which he presents an argument on tides which "depends on the changes which take place in bodies owing to the rise and fall of temperature."Plinio Prioreschi, "Al-Kindi, A Precursor Of The Scientific Revolution", Journal of the International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine, 2002 (2): 17–19 . 9th century – Al-Dinawari, a Kurdish naturalist, writes the Kitab al-Nabat (Book of Plants), in which he deals with the application of meteorology to agriculture during the Muslim Agricultural Revolution. He describes the meteorological character of the sky, the planets and constellations, the Sun and Moon, the lunar phases indicating seasons and rain, the anwa (heavenly bodies of rain), and atmospheric phenomena such as winds, thunder, lightning, snow, floods, valleys, rivers, lakes, wells and other sources of water. 10th century – Ibn Wahshiyya's Nabatean Agriculture discusses the weather forecasting of atmospheric changes and signs from the planetary astral alterations; signs of rain based on observation of the lunar phases, nature of thunder and lightning, direction of sunrise, behaviour of certain plants and animals, and weather forecasts based on the movement of winds; pollenized air and winds; and formation of winds and vapours. 1021 – Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) writes on the atmospheric refraction of light, the cause of morning and evening twilight.Mahmoud Al Deek (November–December 2004). "Ibn Al-Haitham: Master of Optics, Mathematics, Physics and Medicine, Al Shindagah. He endeavored by use of hyperbola and geometric optics to chart and formulate basic laws on atmospheric refraction.Sami Hamarneh (March 1972). Review of Hakim Mohammed Said, Ibn al-Haitham, Isis 63 (1), p. 119. He provides the first correct definition of the twilight, discusses atmospheric refraction, shows that the twilight is due to atmospheric refraction and only begins when the Sun is 19 degrees below the horizon, and uses a complex geometric demonstration to measure the height of the Earth's atmosphere as 52,000 passuum (49 miles),George Sarton, Introduction to the History of Science (cf. Dr. A. Zahoor and Dr. Z. Haq (1997), Quotations from Famous Historians of Science) which is very close to the modern measurement of 50 miles. 1020s – Ibn al-Haytham publishes his Risala fi l-Daw’ (Treatise on Light) as a supplement to his Book of Optics. He discusses the meteorology of the rainbow, the density of the atmosphere, and various celestial phenomena, including the eclipse, twilight and moonlight.Dr. Nader El-Bizri, "Ibn al-Haytham or Alhazen", in Josef W. Meri (2006), Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopaedia, Vol. II, p. 343-345, Routledge, New York, London. 1027 – Avicenna publishes The Book of Healing, in which Part 2, Section 5, contains his essay on mineralogy and meteorology in six chapters: formation of mountains; the advantages of mountains in the formation of clouds; sources of water; origin of earthquakes; formation of minerals; and the diversity of earth's terrain.Toulmin, S. and Goodfield, J. (1965), The Ancestry of science: The Discovery of Time, Hutchinson & Co., London, p. 64 He also describes the structure of a meteor, and his theory on the formation of metals combined the alchemical sulfur-mercury theory of metals (although he was critical of alchemy) with the mineralogical theories of Aristotle and Theophrastus. His scientific methodology of field observation was also original in the Earth sciences. Late 11th century – Abu 'Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Ma'udh, who lived in Al-Andalus, wrote a work on optics later translated into Latin as Liber de crepisculis, which was mistakenly attributed to Alhazen. This was a short work containing an estimation of the angle of depression of the sun at the beginning of the morning twilight and at the end of the evening twilight, and an attempt to calculate on the basis of this and other data the height of the atmospheric moisture responsible for the refraction of the sun's rays. Through his experiments, he obtained the accurate value of 18°, which comes close to the modern value. 1088 – In his Dream Pool Essays (夢溪筆談), the Chinese scientist Shen Kuo wrote vivid descriptions of tornadoes, that rainbows were formed by the shadow of the sun in rain, occurring when the sun would shine upon it, and the curious common phenomena of the effect of lightning that, when striking a house, would merely scorch the walls a bit but completely melt to liquid all metal objects inside. 1121 – Al-Khazini, a Muslim scientist of Byzantine Greek descent, publishes The Book of the Balance of Wisdom, the first study on the hydrostatic balance.Robert E. Hall (1973). "Al-Biruni", Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. VII, p. 336. 13th century – St. Albert the Great is the first to propose that each drop of falling rain had the form of a small sphere, and that this form meant that the rainbow was produced by light interacting with each raindrop.Ancient and pre-Renaissance Contributors to Meteorology National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) 1267 – Roger Bacon was the first to calculate the angular size of the rainbow. He stated that the rainbow summit can not appear higher than 42 degrees above the horizon. 1337 – William Merle, rector of Driby, starts recording his weather diary, the oldest existing in print. The endeavour ended 1344.