Richardson's Forecast: the Dream and the Fantasy

TL;DR

This paper discusses Lewis Fry Richardson's pioneering 1922 work on numerical weather prediction, highlighting its historical significance and its influence on modern computational meteorology.

Contribution

It provides a historical analysis of Richardson's original mathematical approach and its role in the development of contemporary weather forecasting methods.

Findings

Richardson's method was an early systematic approach to weather prediction.

Modern forecasts are now generated by complex computer simulations based on Richardson's foundational ideas.

The paper underscores the evolution from theoretical concepts to practical forecasting tools.

Abstract

A remarkable book on weather forecasting was published just one hundred years ago. Written by the brilliant and prescient applied mathematician, Lewis Fry Richardson, Weather Prediction by Numerical Process was published by Cambridge University Press and went on sale in 1922 at a cost of 30 shillings. Weather Prediction by Numerical Process is a strikingly original scientific work, one of the most remarkable books on meteorology ever written. In it, Richardson described a systematic mathematical method for predicting the weather and demonstrated its application by carrying out a trial forecast. Richardson's dream was that scientific weather forecasting would one day become a practical reality. Modern weather forecasts are made by calculating solutions of the mathematical equations governing the atmosphere. The solutions are generated by complex simulation models implemented on powerful computer equipment. His dream has indeed come true.