Timeline of Meteorology - Middle Ages

Middle Ages

• 500 AD - Varahamithra’s classical work, Brihatsamhita, written about 500 A.D., provides a clear evidence that a deep knowledge of atmospheric processes existed in India even in those times.

• 7th century-Kalidasa in his epic Meghaduta mentions the date of onset of Monsoon over central India and traces the path of monsoon clouds,.

• 7th century-St. Isidore of Seville,in his work De Rerum Natura, writes about astronomy, cosmology and meteorology. In the chapter dedicated to Meteorology, he discusses the thunder, clouds, rainbows and wind.

• 9th century - Al-Kindi (Alkindus), an Arab naturalist, writes a treatise on meteorology entitled Risala fi l-Illa al-Failali l-Madd wa l-Fazr (Treatise on the Efficient Cause of the Flow and Ebb), in which he presents an argument on tides which "depends on the changes which take place in bodies owing to the rise and fall of temperature."

• 9th century - Al-Dinawari, a Kurdish naturalist, writes the Kitab al-Nabat (Book of Plants), in which he deals with the application of meteorology to agriculture during the Muslim Agricultural Revolution. He describes the meteorological character of the sky, the planets and constellations, the Sun and Moon, the lunar phases indicating seasons and rain, the anwa (heavenly bodies of rain), and atmospheric phenomena such as winds, thunder, lightning, snow, floods, valleys, rivers, lakes, wells and other sources of water.

• 10th century - Ibn Wahshiyya's Nabatean Agriculture discusses the weather forecasting of atmospheric changes and signs from the planetary astral alterations; signs of rain based on observation of the lunar phases, nature of thunder and lightning, direction of sunrise, behaviour of certain plants and animals, and weather forecasts based on the movement of winds; pollenized air and winds; and formation of winds and vapours.

• 1021 - Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) introduces the scientific method in his Book of Optics. He writes on the atmospheric refraction of light, for example, the cause of morning and evening twilight. He endeavored by use of hyperbola and geometric optics to chart and formulate basic laws on atmospheric refraction. He provides the first correct definition of the twilight, discusses atmospheric refraction, shows that the twilight is due to atmospheric refraction and only begins when the Sun is 19 degrees below the horizon, and uses a complex geometric demonstration to measure the height of the Earth's atmosphere as 52,000 passuum (49 miles), which is very close to the modern measurement of 50 miles. He also realized that the atmosphere also reflects light, from his observations of the sky brightening even before the Sun rises.

• 1020s - Ibn al-Haytham publishes his Risala fi l-Daw’ (Treatise on Light) as a supplement to his Book of Optics. He discusses the meteorology of the rainbow, the density of the atmosphere, and various celestial phenomena, including the eclipse, twilight and moonlight.

• 1027 - Avicenna publishes The Book of Healing, in which Part 2, Section 5, contains his essay on mineralogy and meteorology in six chapters: formation of mountains; the advantages of mountains in the formation of clouds; sources of water; origin of earthquakes; formation of minerals; and the diversity of earth's terrain. He also describes the structure of a meteor, and his theory on the formation of metals combined Jābir ibn Hayyān's sulfur–mercury theory from Islamic alchemy (although he was critical of alchemy) with the mineralogical theories of Aristotle and Theophrastus. His scientific methodology of field observation was also original in the Earth sciences.

• Late 11th century - Abu 'Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Ma'udh, who lived in Al-Andalus, wrote a work on optics later translated into Latin as Liber de crepisculis, which was mistakenly attributed to Alhazen. This was a short work containing an estimation of the angle of depression of the sun at the beginning of the morning twilight and at the end of the evening twilight, and an attempt to calculate on the basis of this and other data the height of the atmospheric moisture responsible for the refraction of the sun's rays. Through his experiments, he obtained the accurate value of 18°, which comes close to the modern value.

• 1088 - In his Dream Pool Essays (梦溪笔谈), the Chinese scientist Shen Kuo wrote vivid descriptions of tornadoes, that rainbows were formed by the shadow of the sun in rain, occurring when the sun would shine upon it, and the curious common phenomena of the effect of lightning that, when striking a house, would merely scorch the walls a bit but completely melt to liquid all metal objects inside.

• 1121 - Al-Khazini, a Muslim scientist of Byzantine Greek descent, publishes The Book of the Balance of Wisdom, the first study on the hydrostatic balance.

• 13th century-St. Albert the Great is the first to propose that each drop of falling rain had the form of a small sphere, and that this form meant that the rainbow was produced by light interacting with each raindrop.

• Roger Bacon was the first to calculate the angular size of the rainbow. He stated that the rainbow summit can not appear higher than 42 degrees above the horizon.

• Late 13th century-Theoderic of Freiburg and Kamāl al-Dīn al-Fārisī give the first accurate explanations of the primary rainbow, simultaneously but independently.Theoderic also gives the explanation for the secondary rainbow.

• 1441 - King Sejongs son, Prince Munjong, invented the first standardized rain gauge. These were sent throughout the Joseon Dynasty of Korea as an official tool to assess land taxes based upon a farmer's potential harvest.

• 1450 - Leone Battista Alberti developed a swinging-plate anemometer, and is known as the first anemometer.

- Nicolas Cryfts, (Nicolas of Cusa), described the first hair hygrometer to measure humidity. The design was drawn by Leonardo da Vinci, referencing Cryfts design in da Vinci's Codex Atlanticus.

• 1488 Johannes Lichtenberger publishes the first version of his Prognosticatio linking weather forecasting with astrology. The paradigm was only challenged centuries later.

• 1494 Christopher Columbus experience a tropical cyclone, leads to the first written European account of a hurricane.