America’s love affair with weather prediction is the topic of next Frontiers of Science Lecture at Syracuse University

America’s love affair with weather prediction is the topic of next Frontiers of Science Lecture at Syracuse UniversityMarch 18, 2002Judy Holmesjlholmes@syr.edu

William H. Hooke, senior policy fellow and director of the Atmospheric Policy Program for the American Meteorological Society, will present “America’s First Weatherman” at 7:30 p.m. April 3 in Syracuse University’s College of Law Grant Auditorium. The presentation is free and open to the public.

Hooke’s lecture, part of the continuing Frontiers of Science Lecture Series, is co-sponsored by the Syracuse Chapter of Sigma Xi, by the departments of earth science, geography and science teaching in SU’s College of Arts and Sciences and by Le Moyne College.

In 1869, Cleveland Abbe, director of the Cincinnati Observatory, began the first, for-profit delivery of weather prediction. While his business soon folded, he was hired by the U.S. Army Signal Service to support its fledgling meteorological efforts. For the next 45 years, Abbe advanced the nation’s weather services, helped shape current world frameworks for developing and delivering weather and climate information and in the process, aided in addicting Americans to receiving the daily weather forecast.

Hooke’s current policy research interests include natural disaster reduction, historical precedents as they illuminate present-day policy, and the nature and implications of changing national requirements for weather and climate science and services.

From 1967 to 2000, Hooke worked for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and its antecedent agencies. After six years of research in fundamental geophysical fluid dynamics and its application to the ionosphere, the boundary layer, air quality, aviation and wind engineering, he moved into a series of management positions of increasing scope and responsibility. From 1993 to 2000, Hooke was director of the U.S. Weather Research Program Office and chair of the Interagency Subcommittee for Natural Disaster Reduction of the National Science and Technology Council Committee on Environment and Natural Resources.

Hooke was an adjunct faculty member at the University of Colorado from 1969 to 1987 and served as a fellow of two NOAA Joint Institutes. The author of more then 50 refereed publications, and co-author of one book, Hooke holds a bachelor’s degree from Swarthmore College and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

The Frontiers of Science Lecture Series is sponsored by SU’s departments of Science Teaching, Biology, Chemistry, Earth Sciences, Mathematics and Physics in The College of Arts and Sciences, the L.C. Smith College of Engineering and Computer Science, the School of Education, the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry and several community organizations. The series is designed to increase public awareness of advances in science and to stimulate thought and discussion about the moral, ethical and societal implications of the advances.