Royal Meteorological Society
The Royal Meteorological Society is a long-established institution that promotes academic and public engagement in weather and climate science. Fellows of the Society must possess relevant qualifications, but Associate Fellows can be lay enthusiasts. Its Quarterly Journal is one of the world's leading sources of original research in the atmospheric sciences.
Constitution
The Royal Meteorological Society traces its origins back to 3 April 1850 when the British Meteorological Society was formed as "a society the objects of which should be the advancement and extension of meteorological science by determining the laws of climate and of meteorological phenomena in general". Along with nine others, including James Glaisher, John Drew, Edward Joseph Lowe, The Revd Joseph Bancroft Reade, and Samuel Charles Whitbread, Dr John Lee, an astronomer, of Hartwell House, near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire founded in the library of his house the British Meteorological Society, which became the Royal Meteorological Society.[1] It became The Meteorological Society in 1866, when it was incorporated by Royal Charter, and the Royal Meteorological Society in 1883, when Her Majesty Queen Victoria granted the privilege of adding 'Royal' to the title. Along with 74 others, the famous meteorologist Luke Howard joined the original 15 members of the Society at its first ordinary meeting on 7 May 1850. As of 2008 it has more than 3,000 members worldwide. The chief executive of the Society is Professor Liz Bentley.
Membership
There are four different membership categories:
- Honorary Fellow
- Fellow (FRMetS)[2]
- Associate Fellow
- Corporate member
Awards
The society regularly awards a number of medal and prizes, of which the Symons Gold Medal (established in 1901) and the Mason Gold Medal (established in 2006) are pre-eminent. The two medals are awarded alternately.
Other awards include the Buchan Prize, the Hugh Robert Mill Award, the L F Richardson Prize, the Michael Hunt Award, the Fitzroy Prize, the Gordon Manley Weather Prize, the International Journal of Climatology Prize, the Society Outstanding Service Award and the Vaisala Award.
Journals
The society has a number of regular publications:[3]
- Weather: a monthly magazine with many full colour illustrations and photos for specialists and general readers with an interest in meteorology. It uses a minimum of mathematics and technical language.
- Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society: as one of the world's leading journals for meteorology publishes original research in the atmospheric sciences. There are eight issues per year.
- Meteorological Applications: this is a journal for applied meteorologists, forecasters and users of meteorological services and has been published since 1994. It is aimed at a general readership and authors are asked to take this into account when preparing papers.
- International Journal of Climatology: has 15 issues a year and covers a broad spectrum of research in climatology.
- Atmospheric Science Letters: an electronic only publication for short communication.
- WIREs Climate Change: a journal about climate change
- Geoscience Data Journal: an online, open-access journal.
All publications are available online but a subscription is required for some. However certain "classic" papers are freely available on the Society's website.[4]
Local Centres and Special Interest Groups
The society has several Local Centres across the UK.[5]
There are also a number of Special Interest Groups which organise meetings and other activities to facilitate exchange of information and views within specific areas of meteorology.[6] These are informal groups of professionals interested in specific technical areas of the profession of meteorology. The groups are primarily a way of communicating at a specialist level.
Presidents
Source:[7]
- 2016–2018: Ellie Highwood [8]
- 2014–2016: Jennie Campbell
- 2012–2014: Joanna Haigh CBE FRS
- 2010–2012: Tim Palmer FRS
- 2008–2010: Professor Dame Julia Slingo OBE
- 2006–2008: Professor Geraint Vaughan
- 2004–2006: Professor Chris Collier
- 2002–2004: Dr Howard Cattle
- 2000–2002: Dr David Burridge
- 1998–2000: Professor Sir Brian Hoskins CBE FRS
- 1996–1998: David J. Carson
- 1994–1996: John E. Harries
- 1992–1994: Paul James Mason FRS
- 1990–1992: Stephen Austen Thorpe FRS
- 1988–1990: Professor Keith Anthony Browning
- 1986–1988: Richard S. Scorer
- 1984–1986: Andrew Gilchrist
- 1982–1984: Henry Charnock CBE FRS
- 1980–1982: Philip Goldsmith
- 1978–1980: Professor John Monteith FRS
- 1976–1978: Sir John T. Houghton FRS
- 1974–1976: Raymond Hide FRS
- 1972–1974: Robert B. Pearce FRSE
- 1970–1972: Frank Pasquill FRS
- 1968–1970: Sir John Mason FRS
- 1967–1968: F. Kenneth Hare FRSC
- 1965–1967: G.D. Robinson
- 1963–1965: John Stanley Sawyer FRS
- 1961–1963: Howard Latimer Penman
- 1959–1961: James Martin Stagg CB OBE
- 1957–1959: Percival Albert Sheppard FRS
- 1955–1957: Reginald Sutcliffe
- 1953–1955: Sir Graham Sutton CBE FRS
- 1951–1953: Sir Charles Normand CIE
- 1949–1951: Sir Robert Alexander Watson-Watt CB FRS
- 1947–1949: Gordon Miller Bourne Dobson CBE FRS
- 1945–1946: Gordon Manley
- 1942–1944: David Brunt FRS
- 1940–1941: Sir George Clarke Simpson KCB FRS
- 1938–1939: Sir Bernard A. Keen FRS
- 1936–1937: Francis John Welsh Whipple
- 1934–1935: Ernest Gold DSO FRS
- 1932–1933: Sydney Chapman FRS
- 1930–1931: Rudolf Gustav Karl Lempfert CBE
- 1928–1929: Sir Richard Gregory
- 1926–1927: Sir Gilbert Walker FRS
- 1924–1925: Charles John Philip Cave
- 1922–1923: Charles Chree FRS
- 1920–1921: Reginald Hawthorn Hooker
- 1918–1919: Sir Napier Shaw FRS
- 1915–1917: Sir Henry George Lyons FRS
- 1913–1914: Charles John Philip Cave
- 1911–1912: Henry Newton Dickson DSc FRSE
- 1910–1911: Henry Mellish CB
- 1907–1908: Hugh Robert Mill FRSE
- 1905–1906: Richard Bentley
- 1903–1904: Captain David W. Barker Kt RNR
- 1901–1902: William Henry Dines FRS
- 1900: C Theodore Williams & George James Symons FRS
- 1898–1899: Francis Campbell Bayard
- 1896–1897: Edward Mawley
- 1894–1895: Richard Inwards
- 1892–1893: C. Theodore Williams
- 1890–1891: Baldwin Latham
- 1888–1889: William Marcet FRS
- 1886–1887: William Ellis FRS
- 1884–1885: Robert Henry Scott FRS
- 1882–1883: Sir John Knox Laughton
- 1880–1881: George James Symons FRS
- 1878–1879: Charles Greaves
- 1876–1877: Henry Storks Eaton
- 1873–1875: Robert James Mann
- 1871–1872: John William Tripe
- 1869–1870: Charles Vincent Walker FRS
- 1867–1868: James Glaisher FRS
- 1865–1866: Charles Brooke FRS
- 1863–1864: Robert Dundas Thomson
- 1861–1862: Nathaniel Beardmore
- 1859–1860: Thomas Sopwith FRS
- 1857–1858: Robert Stephenson MP FRS
- 1855–1857: Dr John Lee FRS
- 1853–1855: George Leach
- 1850–1853 & 1864: Samuel Charles Whitbread FRS
See also
References
- ↑ Early members of the society
- ↑ The Oxford Dictionary of Abbreviations. Oxford University Press. 1998. p. 176.
- ↑ http://www.rmets.org/publications/journals
- ↑ https://www.rmets.org/publications/classic-papers
- ↑ Local Centres
- ↑ Special Interest Groups
- ↑ List of Presidents
- ↑ https://www.rmets.org/news
External links
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Wikisource has the text of a 1905 New International Encyclopedia article about Royal Meteorological Society. |