Meteorology | Eye of the Storm. Economist, June 6, 2019 https://www.economist.com/books- ... predict-the-weather
(book review on Andrew Blum, The Weather Machine; A journey inside the forecast. Ecco (US) and Bodley Head (UK), 2019)
Quotation after the first paragraph: "The landing by U-537 ws the only known Nazi military operation on North American soil. It was an urgent, if risky, mission. Germany had been cut off from Allied-control weather-observation network, leaving its U-boats vulnerable to eastern-moving storms. * * * During the cold war, America raced to launch satellites that could spot a hurricane veering toward the Gulf of Mexico -- or spy on Soviet weapons build-ups. * * * Mr Blum notes that weather prediction ultimately depends on global network, facilitated by institutions such as th eUN's World Meteorological Organisation [1950- ; based in Geneva]. * * * The smartphone weather app is 'the handsome face of a complex and sprawling machine,' a vast operation encompassing awesome supercomputers, tens of thousands of observation stations and over 100 satellites. * * * Lewis Fry Richardson, an English physicist, estimated in 1922 that a global forecasting office would require 64,000 'computers' -- that is, humans working with pencils and paper. * * * He [Blum] compellingly emphasises the [weather] forecast's diplomatic foundations. Weather prediction represents 'a last bastion of international co-operation,' a global effort to warn of natural disasters that ravage crops and displace communities.
Note:
(a) About the first paragraph. See Weather Station Kurt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_Station_Kurt
(German: Wetter-Funkgerät Land-26; "the equipment was marked as the property of the non-existent 'Canadian Meteor Service' (at the time, the area was part of the Dominion of Newfoundland and not part of Canada until 1949)" )
(i)
(A) Kurt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt
(a male [given] name of Germanic origin; short forms of the Germanic Konrad or Conrad)
(B) Conrad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrad_(name)
(German: Konrad; section 1 Origin and meaning)
Dictionary of American Family Names (published by Oxford University Press) says Conrad is "Americanized spelling of German Konrad"
(ii) German-English dictionary:
* Wetter (noun neuter): "weather"
^ The English noun weather came from "Old English [spoken by Anglo-Saxons] weder." https://www.etymonline.com/word/weather
* Funkgerät (noun neuter; from [noun masculine] Funk radio + [noun neuter] Gerät device) https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Funkgerät
(iii)
(A) territorial evolution of Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_evolution_of_Canada
(1867 confederation of 4 contiguous provinces to form Dominion of Canada; 1870 Canada paid Hudson's Bay Co (HBC) to buy Rupert's Land; 1971 British Columbia joined; Prince Edward Island joined in 1873; 1949 Dominion of Newfoundland joined as a province)
(B) name of Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_Canada
(section 6 Adoption of Dominion, section 6.2 Use of Canada and Dominion of Canada: "Section 4 of the 1867 BNA Act" [British North American Act, enacted by UK parliament])
(C) dominion (disambiguation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_(disambiguation)
("A dominion was a self-governing autonomous state within the British Empire")