BAMOS
Special Issue
5
Figure 3 : The participants at the IMO ( International Meteorological Organization ) First Conference of Directors of Meteorological Services in Munich in 1891 . Full names of participants at
Research Gate . Source : WMO-No . 1244 .
The International Meteorological Organization
The twin objectives of ‘ data for knowledge ’ and ‘ data for practical benefit ’ were brought together in the 1873 Vienna Congress , which is generally regarded as marking the origin of the International Meteorological Organization ( IMO ), the predecessor of WMO ( Daniel , 1973 ).
With its leadership for the next 75 years made up of eminent research scientists and government-appointed Directors of National Meteorological Institutes and Services ( Figure 3 ), including many who were both , the IMO shaped the 20th Century development of meteorology as a model of international cooperation ( Davies , 1986 ):
• As scientists , its members were committed to sharing their data , in the best Humboldtian tradition , for research to advance knowledge ; and
• As Directors of government agencies they were reliant on data from their neighbouring countries to enable them to provide the forecast and other services that were , in many cases , the reason for their existence .
The commitment to standardisation of instruments and sharing of data underpinned and permeated the work of all the IMO Technical Commissions . It found explicit expression in the IMO concept of the ‘ Reseau Mondial ’, the global network which the long-serving IMO President , Sir William Napier Shaw ( Figure 4 ), eloquently described as the guiding principle of international cooperation between the world ’ s meteorological establishments that ... countries ... should maintain the stations necessary for their own meteorological or economic purposes and exchange the information so acquired , by telegraph in the case of observations necessary for the construction of daily charts of weather of the respective countries , and by publication in an agreed form for the data of climatological stations ‘ ( Shaw , 1926 ).
Under the IMO leadership of Napier Shaw and his successors , the centrality of data exchange found particular expression in the 1930s and 1940s :
• for scientific research purposes in the co-sponsorship , with the International Research Council , of the 1932 – 33 Second International Polar Year with its primary focus on collection of meteorological data for research into the physics of the polar regions ; and
• for practical purposes in the huge growth in requirements for operational meteorological data in support of the safety and efficiency of civil aviation .