Helmut Landsberg and the evolution of 20th century American climatology: envisioning a climatological renaissance

Abstract

After World War II, German‐American climatologist Helmut Landsberg sought to realize his war‐time vision for an American ‘climatological renaissance.’ Given the dramatic degradation of European science during the war, he believed that the United States offered the best hope to strengthen and reformulate what he considered to be the stale tradition of conceiving climatology as a geographical discipline. Inhabiting high‐level positions within the American geophysical establishment after the war, his primary goal was to develop the tools and resources to analyze and interpret the overwhelming amounts of data that had been amassed over the centuries while, simultaneously, making climatology relevant to American life. However, there were limits. As someone who had invested his professional life in making climatology a useful discipline, Landsberg grew increasingly concerned that public debates about climate threatened his vision for a climatological renaissance. During the last two decades of his life, he became fixated on maintaining his ideal that climatology was not a glamorous discipline, and objected vehemently to those who sought to counter what he considered to be its true character. WIREs Clim Change 2017, 8:e442. doi: 10.1002/wcc.442 This article is categorized under: Climate, History, Society, Culture > Thought Leaders

Contributions and perspectives from geography to the study of climate

“…The business or industry scale was also of particular interest to geographers, beyond the economic development angle mentioned previously. Indeed, Helmut Landsberg had come up with a term technoclimatology to capture work exploring climate's role in industry and commerce (though it did not catch on) . The works of people like W. John Maunder, John E. Hobbs, Martin L. Parry, James A. Taylor, and John E. Thornes were all important in technoclimatology.…”