Weather prediction by numerical process. by [COMPUTING -- CLIMATOLOGY]. RICHARDSON, Lewis F.[ry] - 1922.

Cambridge: At the University Press, 1922. 4to. xii, 236 pp. Frontisp. map, maps, diagrams, charts, tables, equations. Blue publisher’s cloth, gilt lettering on spine (minor bumping to couple corners, shelfwear, minor edgewear), still a VG bright copy, from the library of Dr. Athelstan Frederick Spilhaus (1911-1998), noted South African-American geophysicist and oceanographer who developed the bathythermograph for measuring ocean depths and temperature changes from a moving vessel and proved invaluable in submarine warfare, as well as for proposing the establishment of Sea Grant Colleges, parallel to the successful land-grant colleges, w/ ownership markings on ffep. First edition of this groundbreaking work proposing tracking weather and weather fluctuations by computing atmospheric changes. Richardson devised a method of solving mathematical equations describing the planetary atmospheric flow by dividing the globe into cells, and specifying the dynamical variables in each cell. He described how “a myriad of computers are at work upon the weather of the part of the map where each sits” with him positing that about 64,000 processors wold work on forecasting analogous to a modern parallel processor. His weather prediction algorithm preceded the necessary changes of a better understanding of the fluid dynamics of the atmosphere, stable computational algorithms to integrate the equations, regular observations of the free atmosphere, and powerful modern supercomputers. Richardson (1881-1953) was deemed by some as “the man who invented weather forecasting,” and was also instrumental in developing along with Quincy Wright, Pitirim Sorokin, Kenneth Boulding, and others the scientific analysis of conflict. See: Tomash & Williams, Erwin Tomash Library on the History of Computing (2009), R88.