A note on climatonomy John Bye
Associate Professor (Principal Fellow), School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne An almost forgotten word is Climatonomy, which was introduced by Heinz Helmut Lettau at the 1954 meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Washington D.C. (Lettau, 1969). In a later paper (Martin and McBean, 1971), Lettau states that “Climatonomy is described as a theoretical modelling technique for local climates which is analogous to the approach of systems engineers to design problems. The technique provides for prediction of the climate change resulting from modification of any single parameter in the system.” Etymologically, climatonomy is concerned with discovering the laws (mathematical relationships) of climate (nomos — law) in distinction to climatology which involves talking about climate (logos — talk) (Schwerdtfeger, 1974). Thus climatonomy is the antecedent of climate science, and the original term for a climate scientist is the less appealing title of climatonomer. A parallel usage is astronomer, from astronomy (the science of the heavenly bodies). Is there also a parallel between astrology (study of reputed influence of stars on human affairs, Oxford, 1960) and
climatology? The answer is yes — for the meaning of climatology, just replace “stars” by “environment”. Climatology is quite distinct from climatonomy and hence also from climate science. Professor Lettau died on 3 August 2005 at the age of 95 in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.
References Lettau, H.H., 1969. Evapotranspiration climatonomy I.A new approach to numerical prediction of monthly evapotranspiration, runoff, and soil moisture storage. Monthly Weather Review, 97, 691–699. Martin, H. and McBean, G., 1971. Chronicle: The Second Canadian Conference on Micrometeorology BoundaryLayer Meteorology, 2, 255–257. Oxford, 1960. The Oxford School Dictionary (Second Edition). Oxford Univ. Press. Schwerdtfeger, P., 1974 . Climatonomy. Selected Topics in Atmospheric and Marine Sciences 5. Flinders Institute for Atmospheric and Marine Sciences.
A note on John Bye, one of our prominent members Alex Pezza Lecturer, School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne I have known John Bye since June 2004, when I arrived in Australia, and have had the privilege of working with him at The University of Melbourne. John is not the type of person anyone would easily forget. His profound integrity of character, cheerful yet humble personality and enormous sense of scientific curiosity are a vital part of his identity. Yet there is so much more about him that makes him special. John was born in 1936 in England where he started his studies and career before moving to Australia. He has an Oceanography degree from Liverpool University, and was awarded a PhD in Meteorology from London University after defending his thesis entitled “Wind-stress induced circulations in small basins and lakes”. John has a vast experience in academic life and teaching. He has held several positions as Lecturer, Senior Lecturer and Associate Professor at Flinders University in South Australia where he resided most of his life. While in Flinders he was influential in the education of successful researchers and academics such as Ian Simmonds (Professor at the University of Melbourne and recipient
Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Vol.24 page 126
Associate Professor and Principal Fellow, Dr John Bye.