Provovations No. 265

Memo to: The Climate Club — C759 11 June 1989From: Walt Roberts

Provocation No. 265 Earl v Cooperation with Russia in Weather Science

Rusty Schweickart and I have been in Berlin tor a week, with colleagues from the Soviet Union, in a workshop on plans for the next year of our computer-mediated "Greenhouse Glasnost" tel econference. Among the interesting happenings was a talk by my long-time friend Michael Budyko of Leningrad, whom I've known since 1958.

C759 CC9i 1 W Roberts away to 12 Jun (Walt R.,759) 6/11/89 12:41 PMKEYS:/PROVOCATIONS N O . 265/

Budyko is a history buff, and gave a wonderful account a century- plus of cooperation in climatology and meteorology by old time Russians. His story starts shortly before 1850, when Nicholas I, Czar of Russia, invited the German scientist, Alexander von Humboldt, to visit Russia to study its climate. Von Humboldt made a very long sojourn to many distant places, all recounted in a large book filled with important details of weather and climate. As a consequence of the contacts with von Humboldt Czar Nicholas, in 1849, founded the Main Geophysical Observatory in Leningrad (MGO), where it operates there to this day, led by Professor Borisenkov, who has several times visited us in Boulder. The subsequent promotion of meteorological observing networks became important for all of Europe.

The third director of MGO was a Professor Wildt, originally Swiss. He was a tyrannical master, but highly skilled. Wildt was largely responsible for accurate new atmospheric instruments, and for well-run and wisely spaced networks. His eminence led to his 1 ater choice as head of the World Meteorological Organization in Geneva.

Several gifted people left the MGO, unable to stomach Wildt's autocratic ways. One was Professor Koeppen, who really had no desire to leave Russia, but settled in Hamburg, even though he maintained lifelong contacts in Russia. Another refugee. Professor Voyekov, went to Goettingen where he took his doctorate, perhaps at the very time that my great grandfather studied at that same renowned University.

Voyekov was a rich man with aristocratic origins, and also a famed scientist with strong interests in climate. He was one of the first to speculate fruitfully about why climates were different in various geographic locations of the world. He too maintained close col 1aborations with his homeland colleagues.

Voyekov also journeyed to Central and North America, as well as Japan, some 120 years ago. Everywhere he went he described the local climate with exquisite skill. In USA he visited and held scientific talks with Professor Coffin, one of very few full time weather experts in USA at the time. Coffin's "magnum opus," his principal duty as employee of the predecessor of the US Weather Service, was a book "Winds of the World" designed to aid sailors as they trekked the

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global seas. Coffin died before finishing his task, but Voyekov,

considering it an essential contribution, completed the work.

Budyko also told us an amusing fact that I had not previously known. There was, some 100 years ago, a Russian nobleman, Prince Golitsyn, who was also a distinguished seismologist, geoscientist and physicist. The intriguing aspect is that our Soviet friend and able Greenhouse G1asnost colleague, Georgii Golitsyn, who was with us in the Berlin workshop, is a direct descendent of Prince Golitsyn. So for the rest of the meeting I started to address Georgii as Prince Golitsyn. But he didn't smile at it, so I quit.

There was lots more meat in Budyko's talk. Perhaps I can recount some of it in a later Provocation. Meanwhile, I've written this on Pan Am, enroute Berlin to Denver, with my really excellent if somewhat rusty little Trash 80, Model 100. Using it helped relieve some of the long, frustrating delay in Berlin, Frankfurt and elsewhere over the welcome, necessary, agonizingly inefficient, and maybe even i nef fect i ve securi t y measures.

P.S. I haven't checked out any of the facts. I made this from memory and crude notes I took at the meeting. I'll check later to see if I got anything grossly wrong. Walt

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