William Charles Redfield

William Redfield

William Charles Redfield (March 26, 1789 – February 12, 1857) was an American meteorologist. He was the first president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1843).[1][2][3][4][5][6]

William Charles Redfield is known in meteorology for his observation of the directionality of winds in hurricanes [7] (being among the first to propose that hurricanes are large circular vortexes,[8] though John Farrar had made similar observations six years earlier), though his interests were varied and influential.

Redfield organized and was a member of the first expedition to Mount Marcy in 1837; he was the first to guess that Marcy was the highest peak in the Adirondacks, and therefore in New York. Mount Redfield was named in his honor by Verplanck Colvin. He was elected an Associate Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1845.[9]

At a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in 1854, Redfield mentioned a storm-path in which no less than seventy odd vessels had been wrecked, dismasted, or damaged.[10]

See also

Notes

  1. Redfield 1860, pp. 46, 107-108, 293-297.
  2. Imago Mundi - William Redfield
  3. AAAS Book of Members, Chapter R
  4. The Encyclopedia Americana
  5. AAAS - The World's Largest General Scientific Society
  6. Chronology of Science in the United States 1840-1849
  7. Chronology of Science in the United States
  8. Remembering the 1821 Hurricane
  9. "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter R" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved September 13, 2016.
  10. Maury's PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA, AND ITS METEOROLOGY p. 66

References

  • Moore, Peter (2015), "The Weather Experiment, the pioneers who sought to see the future", New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ISBN 978-0-86547-809-1
  • Redfield, John Howard (1860). Genealogical History of the Redfield Family in the United States. Albany, N.Y.: Munsell & Rowland. Retrieved August 5, 2015.
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