Nov 14, 2013
How the clouds were named
Thank 18th-century amateur meteorologist Luke Howard and an Icelandic volcano
Why is cumulus called cumulus? Some of the keener skywatchers amongst you will know that it comes from the Latin cumulo-, meaning heap or pile. But someone had to suggest that in the first place. That someone is Luke Howard.
Howard was the son of a successful lamp manufacturer in the 18th century. He was educated by Quakers and set up a tremendously-successful chemical manufacturing business. But in 1783, when he was just 11 years old, something happened that changed him forever.
Earlier that year, a volcano in Iceland called Laki had started spewing vast toxic clouds out of fissures either side of its base. These clouds killed more than half of Iceland’s livestock and caused crop failures across Europe and droughts in Africa and India. It’s thought to have indirectly contributed to the deaths of more than six million people, making it one of the deadliest volcanic eruptions ever.
In Britain, Laki’s ash cloud was thick enough to prevent boats leaving port as they were unable to navigate. The weather started to get weird, with reports from the time noting the “unusual redness of the sun” and extreme lightning storms. Five-inch hail was reported in some areas, as well as tornadoes and flash floods. “The oldest person living does not remember a year that has produced so much thunder and lightning as the present,” reported the Newcastle Courant on 6 September.
The 11-year-old Howard was fascinated by what was going on in the sky above him, and developed a lifelong obsession with the weather as a result. He joined the Askesian Society in London, a debating club for scientific thinkers, which demanded that members take it in turns to present a paper each week or pay a fine.
Howard first presented on “Causes of Rain” on 23 February 1802, then in December he gave a talk called “On The Modification Of Clouds”, which established the terms “cumulus”, “stratus”, “nimbus” and “cirrus” that still exist today. He even linked these forms to predicting the weather, saying:
“While any of the clouds, except the nimbus, retain their primitive forms, no rain can take place; and it is by observing the changes and transitions of cloud form that weather may be predicted.”
He based his classifications on sketches that he made of the skies, and while he admitted he was first and foremost a businessman rather than a scientist, his work proved extremely influential — particularly after being reprinted in Thomas Forster’s Researches About Atmospheric Phaenomenae in 1813.
To understand how influential, it’s worth noting that just a few years earlier, clouds were thought of as not worth analysing or categorising at all, as they never lasted more than an hour or two. Howard’s classification was published in the midst of a tremendous scientific fascination with the atmosphere — The variation of temperature with height was established in 1784, followed by Dalton’ s laws of vapour pressure in 1801-3 and Laplace’s law of variation of pressure with height in 1805.
That influence wasn’t just limited to science. Romantic artists like Turner, Constable and Friedrich used Howard’s descriptions to paint clouds more accurately, and reading Howard’s work directly inspired Turner to paint his series of cloud studies.
Interestingly, Howard was actually beaten to the cloud-classification punch somewhat by French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, who had published a classification of his own earlier in the year. His work was widely-ignored, however — failing to make an impression even in his own country. The 1939 edition of the International Cloud Atlas speculates why this may have been:
“Perhaps this was due to his choice of somewhat peculiar French names which would not readily be adopted in other countries, or perhaps the paper was discredited through appearing in the same publication (Annuaire Meteorologique) as forecasts based on astrological data.”
Four out of five of Lamarck’s principal types of cloud show up in Howard’s naming scheme, but there’s no evidence that Howard was aware of Lamarck’s research, or was even in contact with him.
Howard went on to publish The Climate of London in 1818, one of the first urban climate studies, and also the first to recognise that cities could affect the weather above them — known as the urban heat island effect.It even showed a rudimentary understanding of what we know of as weather fronts.
He also compiled seven lectures in meteorology that he gave in 1817 into the first meteorological textbook in 1837, and published a book called Barometrographicia in 1847.
Late in life, he remarked to a friend that despite his successes running his business, his real passion was always meteorology. He wrote:
“The sky too belongs to the Landscape. The ocean of air in which we live and move, in which the bolt of heaven is forged, and the fructifying rain condensed, can never be to the zealous Naturalist a subject of tame and unfeeling contemplation.”
Today he is celebrated with a blue plaque posted at his north London home at 7 Bruce Grove, Tottenham.
If you want to visit to pay your respects, it’s walking distance from Tottenham Hale and Seven Sisters tube stops, or you can take the train to Bruce Grove from Seven Sisters, and it’s just around the corner.
Thanks to @heardinlondon, via @griddleoctopus, for inspiring this post. If you enjoyed it and want to see more, click the “follow” button below.
