The Time Line of the Development
of Meteorological Analysis

• 1660: The description of the compressibility of gases by Robert Boyle
• 1670: The speculation that air pressure should decrease with altitude by Halley
• 1674: The verification by Pascal that air pressure decreases with altitude
• 1686: The observation and description of the trade winds and the monsoons by Halley
• 1735: The description of the effect of Earth's rotation on wind direction by Hadley
• 1743: The recognition by Benjamin Franklin that storms are moving systems of winds and clouds. Before Franklin storms were thought to be strictly local events.
• 1803: Luke Howard formulates his cloud classification scheme
• 1816: Creation of synoptic maps by Brandes
• 1835: Coriolis provides an analysis of the effect of the Earth's rotation on wind direction
• 1840: Dove identifies polar currents and equatorial currents
• 1861: Jinman provides a formal model of a cyclone
• 1878: Ley creates first model of a cold front
• 1883: Abercromby develops model of cyclone based up the distribution of pressures
• 1890: Van Bebber develops model of cyclone based upon vertical distribution of divergence and the radial temperature gradient
• 1903: Formulation of the mechanism for the source of the kinetic energy of storms from the total potential energy and horizontal temperature gradients
• 1909+: The development of streamline analysis by Bjerknes and Sandström
• 1918+: The development of polar front theory by J. Bjerknes, Solberg and Bergeron (The Bergen School)
• 1928: Analysis of the kinematics of the development of fronts by Bergeron
• 1930: The formulation of isoentropic analysis by Shaw
• 1937+: The application of isoentropic analysis by Rossby and Namias
• 1945: The formulation of quasigeostrophic analysis by Charney and Eliassen
• 1970: The formulation of semigeostrophic theory and its application by Hoskins
• 1970: The development of the theory of symmetric instability in cyclones by Hoskins, Bennetts and Emanuel