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Conference Opportunities

Insular weathers, global atmospheres: Exploring the aerial histories of islands

Atmospheric Humanities Conference II

1-3 November 2024

Historical and Popular Art Museum of Aegina, Greece

Small island countries in the Caribbean and the Pacific and Indian Ocean have always been exposed to extreme weather, but the last decades have made it clear that they are also the biggest future victims of climate change. However, islands are also key sites in the history of science. Much weather and climate knowledge derives from island sites. When European and North American countries started launching weather balloons around 1900 to measure the upper atmosphere, next to ships, islands formed key launching sites. Islands were ideal places to measure the interaction of the global atmosphere, the land and the ocean. The Keeling curve was the result of decades of accurate and continuous measurements at Mauna Loa observatory on Hawaii. Moreover, islands have also became important meteorological metaphors: think about ‘heat islands’ in urban cities, where microclimates create islands where before there were none.

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Notes & Letters

The 5th Meteorological Science & Technology History Conference in China

By Zhenghong Chen, ICHM Vice-President and China Regional Representative

From December 7 to 8, 2021, the China Meteorological Administration Training Centre held the 5th National Conference on the History of Meteorological Science and Technology, by onsite and online methods in Beijing. Dr. Alexander Hall, President of ICHM in 2021, wrote to the China Representative to support the conference and extend his best wishes.