WEATHER
FORECAST THROUGH HISTORY
AN
INTRODUCTION
José Luis
Pascual Blázquez
ã
June, 2006
Introduction.
Empirical
stage (Meteorognomy). First scientific stage of exclusively astronomical-aristotelian
base. Second scientific stage: laws,
apparatuses, recording data... Vindicating
Astrometeorology in century XXI.
Introduction
In the history of the weather forecast we have to
distinguish three great stages:
1) Empirical stage or of signs, cradle in the experience (repetition of
facts), still well-known in rural ambiences.
We cannot speak strictly here of scientific methodology in the present
sense of the term, but we should reject this class of knowledge, typical of a
way of life and culture that deserve our consideration.
2) First scientific stage. Here, the atmospheric phenomena are
interpreted, or tried to give them a logical-rational explanation that, in
addition, allows the prediction of future events. In western cultures the basic
theoretical support was the aristotelian Physics.
This stage have fundamentally astronomical base, that is to say, here,
the celestial events (referring to stars and planets) not only were
distinguished of terrestrial (rain, wind, rainbow, rays and thunders, etc.), but
were considered intimately bound as cause (movement of the spheres and stars)
and effect (meteorological phenomena).
3) Second scientific stage, as from centuries XVI
and XVII; it was then when they
were demonstrated by means of experimentation and calculation some
insufficiencies and heavy errors of Aristotle Physics, giving birth to science
as we know now. The rupture with
the aristotelian ideas brought a new conception of Nature (heliocentric system
of the world, Kepler’s Laws, Galileo’s Kinematics,
We are specially interested here, for two first stages and
how happened the transition to the third, that we will not study in a exhaustive
way, being such subject sufficiently treated by diverse authors and works.
Empirical stage (Meteorognomy)
We can consider here the first written testimony of this
class of knowledge, the omens of
If
15 Sabatu Venus disappears by the west, remaining invisible 3 days, and the 18
Sabatu it appears by the east, catastrophes for the kings;
Adad will bring rains, Ea underground waters;
the king will send greetings to the king.
Tablets of Venus de Ammisaduqa nº 63.
[
Mentioned by B.L. van der Waerden in " On babylonian astronomy ", The
tablets of Ammisaduqa.
Beroso magazine nº 7, page
47.
We found similar prognoses in pre-Columbian mesoamericans
Annals and other cultures in analogous stage of development. In the Mediterranean area we have ample written certainty of
which it was common knowledge of the population to guide themselves in the
annual time and for the short and long term weather forecast. It deals with
observations that allow to know the climate standard of some dates, or if it is
going to rain or snow, to be cold or warm, windy, stormy, etc. coming from the
experience and of the systematic observation (in the country observation is an
automatic function, unlike which it happens for the city inhabitants).
Still now, the indigenous populations of the Altiplano de
los Andes sow potatoes in the soil later or more early according to the
appearance of the Pleiades during the month of June;
if they seems numerous and shining (eleven) they plant them in normal
date, expecting good rains and favourable time for potatoes growing;
if they are dim and in little number, they expect for delayed rains and
delay the plantation (in Agriculture the moment of rains usually is more
important that its amount).
The indigenous populations, unlike the scientists, ignore
that the appearance of the Pleiades in its rise of June is bound to the type of
winds flow in the Altiplano, determined by “El Niño” phenomenon; but it
does not prevent them to optimize the moment of seedtime fitting it to a stellar
observation, alien to the development of the climatic sequences in that zone.
[ See Etnoclimatology of the
As much the ancient cultures grecolatin and Arab had that
rural knowledge orally transmitted of parents to children, rhymed widespread.
Nevertheless, its authentic corpus has
arrived until us written by authors of urban culture, who compiled it and were
transmitting later (today something similar has happened with the proverbs,
mainly those of meteorological content).
The way to locate itself in the annual time, fundamental
to know the moment of farming, seedtime, trashumance, etc. was solved in
neolithic times by means of the association of the appearances and
disappearances of certain groups of stars to the annual cycle of Nature, that
basically depends on the Sun and its swings along the sky. If we did without the
precession of the equinoxes (1º every 72 years of displacement) the succession
of all stars of the celestial sphere by the horizons East and West has the same
period that the solar year (main cause of the stations).
We find in the cuneiform Babylonian documents the first
lists of this annual star succession (we know as lists of astrolabs) and
the first written establishment of the association star-work farming in Hesiod:
When the Pleiades, daughters of Atlas
are rising, begin the harvest, the plowing when theyset.
[
Works and days, 385 ].
Greek astronomers gathered and systematized this empirical knowledge (Eudoxus,
Calipus, Euctemon, etc.) in a
collection of text called parapegmata, stone calendars that were exposed in the streets for public
informationl. They gave the dates
of the main astronomical and meteorological events along the year, taking as
reference the risings and settings of certain stellar groups.
We
have complete the
Geminus Parapegma, of enormous astronomical and meteorological interest.
Through this text we can understand the origin of our term " dog days
" to designate the algid moments of summer heat, because a little before
the beginnings of ours Era the rising of Sirius happened at dawn over the East
horizon (Canis major), that is to say,
the Greater Dog; with the precession of equinoxes the bigining of summer heat
was announced by the rising of Procyon
(Canis Minor, the Small dog),
some centuries later.
The Greek Claudius Ptolemy (II century), whose
astronomical and astrological work dominated the western scientific panorama
until century XVI, made himself weather observations in Alexandria and
elaborated its own description of the annual time in the work named Phaseis (that we have rather to understand as “strip” or
“bands” of stars which ascend and descend through the horizon, which Ptolemy
uses to know the moment of the year and climate associate).
This author also gathered some signs of weather forecast
(halos, Sun and Moon colours, etc.) in
his famous astrological treated Quadripartitum
or Tetrabible.
The Geminus Parapegma,
as others contemporaneous works, and later the Arab books of
anwá, describe the standard time of the year in their places of
origin (
People interested can read at the moment in Castilian
language the Andalusian anonymous
Calendar, the Treatise of months of Ibn Asim, and Liber regius (Latin language), or a version in Arab,
Latin and French of Calendar of Cordova, etc.
This type of information located country inhabitants in
the annual time, but it was not enough to survive to surprises of the inclemency;
the other great question was: what
class of weather can we expect today, or tomorrow?
There will be storm, stable weather, heat, wind or cold?
And the next season, how will be? And
the next year? Better to seed or to leave fallow? Can we expect good or little grass? There will be sufficient water in wells or rivers for the
kitchen gardens? We enter here in
empirical associations usually called " signs ".
From our modern perspective that short of information
pretends a primitive stage of knowledge, but only from the limited point of view
of the urban and uprooted culture of the environment that we have;
in a unique Nature where everything is organized and interacts
permanently, like in any complex system, it is very difficult that something cab
happens without leaving any track in the rest.
In the same way which a headache can warn of a gastric ailment, the type
of weather in a while of the year can announce how comes whole the climatic
cycle, or the abundance of acorns in the oaks can be a good augury of the coming
time. This type of knowledge is not
an exact science (present Meteorology is not either), but there is no doubt, was
useful and continues offering interest and attention, at least curiosity in the
modern man.
Valuable information of this type we can find nowadays in Phenomena
of Aratus, in Georgics of
Virgilius, Peri semeion (De signis), written
c.a.
This type of texts had a great successful, that still is
present nowadays. This class of omens of weather for the day that begins, for
morning, for the lunation, the month, the station or the year, was copied and
repeated by numerous authors as from the medieval period; they already appeared in some almanacs after the invention of
the press, later in works on Chronology. For
example, in Chronology and repertoire of the reason of the times, by
Rodrigo Zamorano, published in Seville in 1585;
in Repertoire of the times and Natural History of this New Spain, by
Henrico Martinez, appeared in Mexico in 1606;
in General Agriculture by Alonso Hererra, published in Madrid in 1645;
in Rustic Record, phisica visible and undeniable astrology:
Pastoral lessons of agriculture and judgments to make scholar to the
peasant of Diego de Torres Villarroel, appeared for the first time in 1727,
and of course, in the more important Spanish almanac. His author, Jerónimo Cortés,
who from the end of century XVI continued publishing up to 1936.
This class of useful signs for weather forecast we can
classify them in diverse types:
a)
Observation of the Sun, the Moon and the stars, including fotometeors.
b)
The weather and the prevalence of the types of wind on certain days of the year
and the moon (lunar month).
c)
Observation of plants and animals.
d)
Observation of non alive materials (grounds, walls, soot, rivers, wells, etc.).
e)Types of clouds and place of appearance.
f)In general, the texts that bring this class of information classify it
in fair weather signals, of hail, colds and heats, rain, as well as the way to
make seasonal prognoses and for the complete year.
Let us comment a little all this meteorognomic
hotchpoch, that is the suitable term to denominate this class of knowledge.
On what they indicate the color of the Sun, the Moon and
the aspect of stars already speaks Aratus in
Phenomena and little have
added later other authors, which is logical, since the progressive urbanization
of societies does not favour the meteorognomic knowledge, but only its written
conservation. Aratus talks about the prognoses that indicate the aspect of both
stellar groups that there are around the Manger, in the constellation of Cancer
(if they are seen or not, if they pretend to come near or they vanish), which is
a fine empiric diagnosis of the presence, or no, of humidity in height
atmosphere (cirrostratus, announcing a disturbance);
Aratus also gathers the predictions that was current in their time by
means of two typically Mediterranean plants, the “lentisco” and the oak (amount,
number of flowerings, etc.).
The European proverbs keep in rhymed version most
indications from the color and aspect of the Sun, as well as from all class of
fotometeors (halos, rainbow, “parhelios” , etc.).
Proverbs also keeps sentences on the weather forecast,
either in the long term, according to the lunar day or the year; we enter here in prognoses such as “cabañuelas ",
" témporas ", " caniculares", " canablas ",
" barruntos ", " aberruntos ", " surtimientos ", zotal
egunak, cabanelles, and “twelve
nights”, etc., of exclusive rural and popular origin, as well as
of oral tradition (there is no written text on the subject until the end of
century XX, when the culture of survival in Spanish countries is extinguished).
The observation of the flight and the behavior of birds,
flies and mosquitos, spiders, toads, frogs, cattle and ovine, hens and roosters,
fish in the rivers and a long list of others, as well as dandelions, saffron,
“carlina”, etc., in relation to the changes of weather, is world-wide well-known,
and its continuity is ensured in multiple sentences of proverbs.
Ancients observed accurately the appearance of humidity in
grounds and walls, bad scents in the pipes, upwellings or turbulences in waters
of wells and pools, the soot fall in the chimneys, way of crackle of live coals,
or the flame in oil lamps, observation of ashes of fireplaces and chimneys, etc.
Local names for certain cloud appearance, or its location
on certain places, proliferate along all Europe so that the meteorological
condition to come is significant and quite sure; so it is the case of “nubes paciendo” (clouds
grazing), “hats”, “monteras”
or “toquillas” (hadscarfs) on the
tops of some mountains, the Andalusian vaca esollá, sign
of south winds or " llovedores", the ampurdanian
núvol cerdà that
appears with the “tramontana” wind and indicates rain in France, etc. In general they come with very defined meteorological
conditions, well known by the inhabitants of the place where they are
characteristic.
Between the more estimable indications are the seasonal
and annual; we have made a complete study compilation in our work “Cabañuelas”
and Empirical Meteorology. The
short and long term weather forecast in rural world (2005).
Before, there is a nourished group of investigators and authors who
dedicated to their time and its attention to gather this type of knowledge (in
Spain José María Iribarren, Julio Caro Baroja, Cels Gomis, Joan Amades,
Enrique Gaspar Casas, Antonio Allue Morer, Julia Sevilla, Jesús Cantero, etc.).
Do you think that this class of beliefs and this type of
knowledge are typical of a closed rural world without communication with the
outside? On the contrary, it is the
expression of a common cultural substrate spread all along Europe and North
Africa (at least in which we have been able to verify), as it demonstrates the
fact that many sentences of the proverbs are repeated from a country to another,
from a language to another, without another difference that the translation.
Such establishment could be interpreted as plagiarism, copy or simple
circulation along the time of oral traditions; there is no doubt this is a part
of the truth, but not everything. The
surprising uniformity of the European and North African meteorognomic knowledge
also finds justification in the fact of the population of Europe after the thaw
that conducted to the Neolithic and subsequent drying of the Sahara;
Europe literally was invaded by populations that fled from that climatic
catastrophe searching for more favourable zones to the life, carrying themselves
the culture and language, which we may to suppose enough uniforms at that time,
to disperse later with time.
That happened with languages, but not with meteorognomics
knowledge, particularly during the last climatic period, the subatlantic, that
lasts from -500 approximately; that
uniformity allows to think about its maintenance and conservation along the
time.
We cannot close this part of our study without gathering
ancient ways to foretell the weather, although we enter here into the divinatory
techniques (do not forget the etymology of the term, " to speak with the
Gods"), which is to be understood in the mentality of ancient peoples (we
also have ours, with their weakness, which we do not discern, we also have veils
of our culture).
Between the divinatory procedures it was the escapulimancy,
still used in Middle Ages; the interpretation of the aspect of a lamb shoulder
blade, once roasted, had one double character, public and private.
The private set standards on the government of the family and home; the
public deal with subjects as the state, harvests, prices and, of course, the
coming climate.
Arab manuscripts are conserved teaching the way to
interpret the signs of lamb shoulder blade, gathered surely in the phase of
progressive urbanization of the Arab culture (the tradition was rural, there is
no doubt, and orally transmitted, as all teachings in this world).
In countries of celtic influence we found a similar
divinatory method, but with the breastbone of goose that traditionally is eaten
in
In the ancient world, where the deads were next to the
alive and any sign was considered as ominous (uniqueness of Nature, current use
of the symbolic language) the sacred and the profane formed an inseparable contiuum. The religious celebration was inseparable of the knowledge of
future; thus we see it in the observation of the altars smoke, where the ritual
sacrifices were carried out, indicating the wind that was going to dominate in
the coming cycle (in each place, the type of wind determines the heat or the
cold, rain or drought, etc.).
Christianizeds, these beliefs have been conserved up to
present time; still in century XX was thought in the
Let us see the use of this class of knowledge in Kepler’s
days:
..
Here however, I do not reject the [well known] observations of the ancient
authors, Hesiod, Strates, Virgil, Plutus nor other modern [observations] of
agriculturist, who draw conclusions as to the future temperature of the air from
the annual rising of the stars and phase of the Moon at the time they observe
these phenomena (not a long time beforehand.
[
Johannes Kepler On
the very certain foundations of Astrology.
Clancy
Publications.
One of the key-points of meteorognomic knowledge (shared
with the astrological one) is the importance given at certain moments of the
year (we could talk now of critical important points).
The collections of proverbs are full of sentences saying that if in such
day it happens such thing during so many weeks, months, in present station or
all along the year will dominate such-and-such wind, rain, drought, etc.
The same intrinsic idea dominates in the long term technique of “cabañuelas”
and other similar procedures in weather forecast.
The concept goes united to the " propitious moments " of magic
and divination (nights of
As an example, in the well-known text The myth of eternal return Mircea
Eliade deals with the importance of the days that separate the end of the
beginning of year:
Analogous
custom of the "destines fixation " of the Babylonian New Year, that
has been transmitted until present times in the New Year ceremonial between the
mandeans and the yezids ones.
Also the twelve days that separate the Christmas Eve of the Epiphany
continue being considered at the moment a prefiguration of the twelve months of
the year, because the New Year repeats the cosmogonic act.
Farmers of all
The Babylonian New Year ceremonial of akitu lasted twelve days, and within those days was the "celebration of Lots ", zahmuk, in which the omens for each of the twelve months of the year were determined. So, the general pattern of the “cabañuelas” can have its origin in the first historical cultures, the Mesopotamian ones. Mircea Eliade also calims that the mythical-ritual set of the New Year already was well-known of the sumeroacads, long before Babylonian summit-time. In it, the twelve intermediate days that separate the old year of the new one also preappeared the twelve months.
First scientific stage of exclusively
astronomical-aristotelian base
In order to understand this historical phase on
meteorological knowledge we have to leave our present academic and cultural
formation, trying to get the ancient thought; unusually and paradoxically our
ancestors did not distinguish meteorology of astronomy, nor the celestial
phenomena of the atmospheric ones, something extremely astonishing for modern
mentalities. Comets and rainbows, the epochs of rains or heats, everything what
we can make out watching upwards, comprised a continuum for
ancient peoples. And, since in deepest of the firmament stood God
or the divinities, it does not have to be strange that all these phenomena,
astronomical and atmospheric, were taken as manifestations or signs from the
divine will that sometimes awarded to humankind with fecund rains, or it
punished them by his bad actions with droughts, plagues and catastrophes.
The departure point for this first stage of scientific
development in European and North African cultures was three texts of Aristotle
(century IV b.C.): Meteora (Meteorologics),
De caelo (On
the heavens) and De generatione et corruptione (On
generation and corruption). In the
three texts a radical division is settled between the sky (immutable,
incorruptible, not formed by matter but the fifth Element or quintessence, in
that only can be circular uniform movement
of the orbs or planetary spheres dragging the corresponding star) and the
material Earth (formed by four Elements, that is to say, Fire, Air, Water and
Earth), susceptible to changes, mutations, accidents, “passions” and,
therefore, generation and corruption. The
sky (in fact, the skies, the celestial orbs or spheres), are active and causes;
on the contrary, the Earth is passive and undergoes the effect of celestial
turns. In this system of thought
all phenomena of the material world -inferior-
have by cause the turn and movement of the superior or celestial world.
There was a physical-mathematician development of these
ideas by means of Geometry, harmonic proportions and Music, that in Antiquity
consisted of Acoustics or Sound’s Physics, as he can see in several extant (The
Manual of harmonics by
Nicomacus of Gerasa, Harmonicas by
Claudius Ptolemy, etc.), and in
near times Harmonices mundi by
Kepler, in which he tries to justify the facts –then unquestionable, of
relation between celestial and the terrestrial facts- by means of mathematical
apparatus of " music of the
spheres " or " celestial music ", one inaudible melody, although
anybody doubted about its existence. As
relic of these times we have the astronomical origin of notes of the present
musical scale.
In Antiquity the word
meteorology did not exist to deal with the weather nor its prognosis;
during the Middle Ages, in Latin language it was spoken De accidentibus aeris
and in Arab of al-athar al-'ulwiya. Aristotle’s Meteora was translated as " On the
impressions [ of the superior bodies ] ", that is to say, the stars.
We must consider the great catastrophe, in all levels, that the fail of
Roman Empire supposed for Europe; it is not exaggerated at all to affirm that
the culture, literally, disappeared, giving force to all kind of beliefs and
superstitions. " Dark Age " has been called the next centuries after
They made up the cultural and scientific summit of Middle
Ages, so is the reason that their writings were so desired for the Christians,
that remained underdeveloped in all orders of
knowledge. Specially, Arab
astronomy dazzled on the other side of the borders (as all scientific and
philosophical knowledge in general), and astronomical were the Arabs tools of
weather forecast.
All this thought came from East and dominated in Europe
and
In the gestation of medieval meteorology two routes with
an unique origin came together (Middleaster, that is to say, Babylonian): the
Greek (Aristotle and an important part of the hellenistic thought) and the
Indian (stellar astrology, lunar mansions, etc., with Persian and hermetic
influences).
This flow and ebb of ideas travelled after the dispersion
of Babylonian culture, where surely it reached the highest levels of development;
there the knowledge were transmitted of parents to children, who learned from
the first years of life, and perhaps in this system of transmission was the key
of its great success, as we know through Diodorus Siculus. From there Eastern
science travelled towards the West, fertilizing hellenistic
We found the reunification of both branches in an Arab
medieval well known, Al Kindi, author of two Letters and some other pieces that
deals, among other many scientific and philosophical works, on atmospheric
phenomena and weather forecast. His work was the most important contribution in
the transmission of these ideas, because it was translated to Hebrew in century
XIV, and also the Latin; it was widely desired and recognized, as we see in the
great amount of medieval and even Renaissance European authors who translated
him, copied, plagiarized and retranslated Al Kindi’s works.
Letters I and II were including in a single Latin text
divided into 8 chapters, known as De mutatione
temporum. Kitab al-sirr,
Book I (Forty Chapters) was
known in Latin as Iudicia.
Other authors who dedicated their attention to the subject
were Omar b. Al Farrukan Al Tabarí (kitab
to mukhtasar al-masái)l, that
also was translated to Latin. Abumassar, Persian astrologer of century IX, wrote
On the great conjunctions, a
classical work profusely devoted to relations between planetary configurations
and climatic phenomena and (kitab
to nukat,
Other texts with similar contents were kitab tahawil
sini al-alam of Sahl b. Bishr (Fatidica
in Latin).
Most of these texts were translated to the Latin in century XII; this
century was the begining of the entrance of these knowledge in
From century XII also
comes the Latin version Epistola in
pluviis et ventis, written
by the Jew named Messahallah. Chapters
with meteorological contents we can see in " The Book of Three Judges
" and " The Book of Nine
Judges ". The Jew born in
Tudela (
The Libro conplido en los
iudizios de las estrellas by
Aly Ben Ragel, translated to medieval Castilian in century XIII, ordered by
Alfonso X The Wise of Castile, contains a part of Book VIII devoted to weather
forecast. Its sources are Omar b. Al Farrukan Al Tabari like and Abumasar.
We have to point out that during centuries XX and XXI this text was
transliterated by the hispanist scholar Gerold Hilty (1954 and 2005) and adapted
twice to modern spanish one (1995, School of Translators of Sirventa and
Gracentro).
Another fundamental work in this field by its notables
contents of meteorological matter was translated to medieval Castilian in the
Court of Alfonso X (century XIII), Book of the Crosses, attributed
to Obeydallah. The system seems to
be of very ancient application, because he was already well-known in visigotic
The European medieval translators, in addition to make
their work of adaptation, took control of an important part of these materials,
putting their name in them as authors. Juan of Seville, or “The Hispanic”,
or “The Hispalense”, wrote Tractatus pluviarum et aeris mutationis; also
there are meteorological contents in his
Epitome totius astrologiae.
Hermann of Carinthia wrote Liber imbrium;
Grosseteste Ad precognoscendam diversam aeris dsipositionem;
Firminus of Bellavalle De
mutatione aeris; John of
Ashenden Summa iudicialis de accidentibus mundi;
also there is
information on this subject in Liber decem astrologiae by
Guido Bonatti and in the sixth part of Compilatio de astrorum scientia by
Leopold of Austria, very present in the most popular Spanish Almanc, that of the
Valencian Jerónimo Cortés.
We found at the end of century XV an important astronomer,
the Jew of Salamanca Abraham Zacut, known mainly by its improvement in
astronomical tables for the navigation towards the recently discovered
In written documents there is a revealing detail that
speaks clearly about the conceptions of medieval and Renaissance men:
many astronomical tables have in the margins annotations with weather
observations, illustrating that, more than to carry out systematic registries,
looked only for correlations between concrete celestial configurations and
certain phenomena or atmospheric conditions. Nevertheless, the rule, has its
exception: William Merle carried
out systematic registries from 1337 to 1344 (manuscript conserved in
Zacut lived in the first years of the press,
simultaneously with the conquest of
Almanacs with all kind of predictions, and among them,
climatic and meteorological, began to proliferate all through
They are also characteristic of the century XVI end and
beginnings of the XVII some works devoted to Chronology, including abundant
astrological and meteorognomic material (Chronology and repertoire of the
reason of times,
by Rodrigo Zamorano,
cosmographer of Felipe II, Seville, 1585; Repertoire
of times and Natural History of this New Spain, Henrico
Martinez, Mexico, 1606). This work
includes weather prognoses from 1606, by quarters of Moon, to 1620, as well as
abundant meteorognomic information; it
comments the effects of Mars-Saturn conjunctions on
In this epoch we also have an important author that
dedicated his time to try to give account of the effects of planets on the Earth,
and among them meteorological influences; we are talking of Johannes Kepler,
convinced neoplatonic and Pythagorean, one of the modern science builders (defending
Copernicus heliocentrism, friend of Galileo, discoverer of the three laws that
take their name, exquisite mathematician and author of Astronomia nova, which
remarkably improves in Mars
astronomical knowledge, Mysterium Cosmographicum ("The
Secret of the Universe ", where tries to justify the relations between the
distances and the planetary periods) and Harmonices mundi, in
which it gives his interpretation of the planetary influence resorting to
mathematical tools of his epoch (Music and Geometry).
It is specially interesting for us On the very certain foundations of
astrology, containing some of his own criteria prediction (Kepler only
worked with the " planetary aspects ", not with horoscopes) and
weather forecast for entire year 1602. This
work has been published in Spanish recently (2003).
Kepler did not follow the way of other astrologers; unlike
most of them, who limited themselves to repeat previous authors without critic
nor verification of the doctrine, Kepler investigated the subject both in
theoretical order as in practitioner; He
really was the last finder of the truth in an epoch that the old ideas, and
mainly the apparently unconquerable aristotelian and Ptolemaic buildings,
staggered before the new model of the world (heliocentric copernican) and the
new Physics (Kepler, Galileo and Newton in the beginning, followed later of
numerous new creators of science).
Therefore, century XVII marks the definitive crisis, the
border between the doctrines that sink and the new emergent ones; in the middle of such stagnation the more extensive and
complete astrological work dedicated exclusively to weather forecast appears in
Lisbon during 1632: Astrological Summa and art to teach to make weather forecasts, written
by Antonio de Nájera, who, as Zacut, is more known between the historians by
his astronomical works related to navigation, in the epoch of American
colonization. This work also has been reedited recently, in 1996.
The Summa, as
already its name announces, develops the contributions of Ptolemy, with all its
elements, to which it adds the doctrines of lunar mansions and " openings
of the doors " coming from Indian Astrology, with practical examples,
quantification of planetary forces, treatment of eclipses and, mainly, a great
number of aphorisms accumulated in previous books, throughout centuries.
Antonio de Nájera quotes Abu Massar and Al Kindi, that, with Ptolemy,
are their main sources.
But the astrological winter knocked to the doors;
in 1677, the Valencian augustine Leonardo Ferrer composes his peculiar
Curious Astronomica and description of the world superior, and inferior, that
contains a part devoted to weather forecast with some contribution of him (it
defends, for example, the doctrine of symmetrical points –“antiscios” in
respect to cardinal points of the Zodiac and that the aspects between Mercury
and Jupiter move the “tramontana” wind).
The last Spanish astrologer of great reputation that
treated the subject was Diego de Torres Villarroel, known as The
Great Piscator of Salamanca and
university professor of Mathematics in this
In this epoch was born a new vision of the world and
astrologers began to be object of jokes; Torres had to defend himself of some of
them with their acid and quevedesc characteristic style. He refuted
Second scientific stage: laws, apparatuses, recording data...
The birth of modern science, as we know it at the moment,
had a long gestation. In the same
way which in
For that reason there were first people during the Middle
Ages that glimpsed another way to approach the interpretation of the reality –the
subject of science- different to Scholastics, this one of christianized
aristotelian base, initiated by Saint Thomas of Aquino.
For that reason, weather forecast by means of astronomical markers never
underwent any annoyance of the ecclesiastic power (Saint Isidore, in Etimologias,
defended the practice and
kindness of " natural astrology ", that is, the one devoted to time
measurement and weather forecast, as opposed to " divinatory ",
dangerous in moral realm).
Between these advanced people
emphasizes the English franciscan Roger Bacon, author of Opus Maius (1268);
he praises here the necessity of experiment and induction in phenomena
interpretation. As it is known, he
went into the jail and his final life was dark, maybe tragic.
In the Renaissance we found Galileo Galilei (1564-1642),
considered as official founder of experimental method.
At present it would seem a simpleness, but we must consider that, in the
summit of power of Christian historical cycle, the investigation with material
bodies was not admitted by some ecclesiastical authorities, pertaining the
matter to the tempting devil –wealth of the world, physical knowledge, opposed
to the spirit -; only just Kepler was able to dare to watch through the
telescope, recently invented, to see Jupiter moons, Moon craters or Saturn rings.
Neither the Sun spots (the Sun was the symbol of Christ in the world, so
it could not have defects that disfigured the perfection of the King Stars).
Galileo was pioneering in the use of Algebra (equations) to describe the bodies
movement (fallen of graves, launching of projectiles, etc.); Algebra in addition,
coming from the Muslim world, the Christian mathematics were much more
underdeveloped. If at present time
this may seem a triviality, then, not only was revolutionary, but dangerous, due
to the almost absolute power of ecclesiastical hierarchy.
Galileo wrote in a quite satirical style his defender of
the heliocentric system of the world, Dialogues on both maximum systems of
the world, ptolemaic and copernican, defying aristotelian Physics not only with philosophical
argumentation, but with experience too (fallen of graves from Pisa’s Tower);
only a genius and quick-tempered person like him could dare to as much...
and it is known that he had to retract itself of his ideas before the Pope of
Rome.
We assign to Galileo the invention of the first
thermometer, a key instrument in the development of the new way to investigate
and to interpret atmospheric phenomena.
We found in 1623 the appearance of a text that changed our
minds about the world: Instauratio
magna by Francis Bacon, and a
few years later (1637) The Speech of the method, by René Descartes, another work that destroyed the ancient
ideas.
The intellectual climate of that epoch conducted to make
in 1639 the first pluviometer and in 1641 the first thermometer with certain
reliability. In 1644 the Italian
Evangelista Torricelli carried out its well-known experiment of the mercury
column, being able to demonstrate that the air had some weight and exerted a
pressure on all the bodies; the experience, in addition, allowed to measure the
value of atmospheric pressure.
To Pascal is attributed an ascent to the Puy de Dôme
revealing that the barometric mercury column diminished with height; it can seem a triviliality now, but then it supposed to face
an amount of dogmas and obsolete beliefs living their final days.
We must think that in century XVII the existence of the
air as something material was not clear at all;
pneuma is the Greek ethimology
of the term, from
where our car “pneumatics” or " tyres ". It also means " gas
" and " spirit ". Still now distilled are called "spirits
"; for example, etilic alcohol is known as "spirit of wine ",
that is, the subtlest part of that drink. The
air chemical composition was not known until 1781, when the French Lavoisier
found that he contained 20% of
oxygen and 80% of nitrogen. For
many people the winds were consequence of Eolo’s
whims, a Greek God (nevertheless
aristotelian Physics recognized that the air dilated with the heat and
contracted with the cold, originating the wind).
Otto von Guericke (1602-86) was pioneer in using the water
barometer to predict the weather; it exists a document of
In 1659 was made the first hygrometer of condensation; in
1669 was carried out the well-known experience of
In
In 1714 we found the first Traité de Météorolgoie, written
by the French Louis de Cotte, priest of Montmorency, taking a term nonused until
then in the rising science. In 1788
was published
Bejamin Franklin (1706-90) managed to capture atmospheric
electricity by means of one commits during storms, being able to demonstrate
that rays and thunders had an electrical nature.
In 1688 the British astronomer Edmund Halley proposed for
the first time the necessity to make a wind map on planetary scale, an advanced
and bold idea from our historical perspective.
This proposal did not find positive echo until 1735, when George Hadley
proposed a general model of atmospheric circulation; thus Meteorology came near
to its present patterns.
But this is another history.
Vindicating
Astrometeorology in century XXI
The new way to contemplate the world has given great
results, one of them, Meteorology as we know it now.
Meteorology gives excellent proposals in short term weather forecast; but
also it is well known that, beyond of two days, the solutions of numerical
models are little trustworthy and the hopes to improve in middle and long term
are limited. We already have generic seasonal predictions (temperatures and
precipitations average), and that supposes a remarkable qualitative improvement;
but even so, the long term weather forecast is a problem without satisfactory
solution.
One of the main difficulties consists on in which the
atmosphere behaves as a chaotic system, and that limits drastically the
reliability of the equations that are introduced in the great computers. Some
people think that the more exact data and the more are those that are given to
the machines, the more close we will be of the final solution.
In Meteorology we are in front of a determinism question, as it already
happened to the investigators of the atomic world at the beginning of century XX
As opposed to this bleak panorama, in respect to the
climatic variability, we think that the problem can be attacked by other
different ways from used by the meteorologists at the moment.
The evolution of Physics and science in general during the last decades
allows us to make some proposals that some years ago would been considered bold
or absurd. In fact we are talking
of to attack the problem of long term prediction by means of global
considerations, that is to say, astronomical. We will justify immediately the
reason.
We have a previous success in Milankovitch’s Theory,
that interprets the great climatic changes - freezings, defrostings, etc. – by
means of the variations of the Earth orbit (axis inclination, movement of the
apsids line and precession of the equinoxes, all of them long period
factors and apparently separated of the causes of climate).
It is possible to ask ourselves if the climatic variability is not
interpretable also through connected astronomical markers with the Earth, as
they are planetary cycles within the Solar System (corresponding resonant
periods). The quantitative weakness
of the planetary influence suggests at first it can be negligible and we can
ignore it without any consequence for mathematical models; in fact, astronomical
parameters have been introduced in the equations of the numerical models and
given to the great computers; as we could expect, so weak factors actually do
not vary the value of the final solutions.
Nevertheless, to conclude of this fact that the planetary
effect does not exist, or that really we can ignore it, would be a fatal error;
we think that it would be an enormous error in all the orders - philosophical, logical,
scientific, etc. -.
We are going to try to explain the reason.
Are we so sure enough that the cause of the annual
climatic cycle and its supra annual variability is supported exclusively in the
Earth orbital motion? We know that
to propose lunar and planetary influences it sounds to astrology, to popular
beliefs and superstition. We want
to remember here that in years 30 and 40 of century XX meteorologists put great
hopes in the study of this type of influences - solar activity, planetary and
lunar gravitation-. To deal with the problem of climatic variability they
celebrated the International Congress of Cosmobiology in Nize in June of 1938,
that reunited to astronomers, meteorologists, physicists, engineers, etc. And,
nevertheless... can we take the
scissors and cut to our whim the Nature by where we want like a negligent
surgeon? Will not we be denaturing
the problem when separating the Earth and the Sun of the rest of elements of the
Solar System, that behaves as an unique and a whole entitiy?
When reducing the
climate to an interaction between only two bodies of that machinery that works
integrated, shared in common and interactively, will not we be losing something
really decisive, simplifying the problem and leaving turned it a simple cartoon?
We can separate the parts mentally, conceptually, but the real fact is that the
parts are not isolated nor separated, but they are joined and working in a
unique reality.
We have a point of comparison in the role which the
oligoelements have in the soil (Agronomy), or the catalysts in chemical
reactions and enzymes in alive beings (Biochemical).
The presence of oligoelements in the soil, although in lowest amounts, is
fundamental in agriculture, and also in nutrition. Deficiencies of boron,
manganese, etc. in the soils can determine the ruin of the harvests; although
the fundamental elements for plants are nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, in
Agronomy exists the minimum’s law: the
production is limited by the element that is in smaller amount, even if this one
is a oligoelement. And the same it
happens in the superior animals: although
the basic nutrients are proteins, lipids and glucids, the presence in lowest
amounts of zinc, cupper, vitamins, etc. is fundamental and its deficiency can
cause serious alterations of the health in no proportional relation with the
necessary daily minimum doses of these substances.
Something suggests that similar circumstances can also
occur in the development of climatic variability respect to some planetary
cycles, by weak that can be the luminosity or the gravity from a planet respect
to other parameters (annual solar cycle, etc.).