Cleveland Abbe biography
Date of birth : 1838-12-03
Date of death : 1916-10-28
Birthplace : New York City, New York, U.S.
Nationality : American
Category : Science and Technology
Last modified : 2011-08-16
Credited as : Meteorologist, first weatherman, Robert Abbe
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Cleveland Abbe studied at City College of New York and worked at the Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory under Otto Wilhelm Struve. Later, while he was Director of the Cincinnati Observatory, he began distributing daily weather forecasts to a few dozen subscribers via Western Union telegraph lines. In 1870 he helped establish the US Weather Bureau (now the National Weather Service), where he was subsequently Chief Meteorologist for many years. He founded the scientific journal Monthly Weather Review, which is still published by the American Meteorological Society. Also, as a practical necessity for keeping weather records nationwide, Abbe laid out the plan for the four standardized time zones which span the continental United States -- previously, time had been determined by local tradition, and often varied even from one town to the next.
His brother, Robert Abbe, was a famous physician of his time, and a pioneer in the introduction of radiation therapy for cancer. His granduncle, William Colgate, was the founder of Colgate-Palmolive.
Author of books:
A First Report on the Relations Between Climates and Crops (1905)
The Geography and Geology of Alaska: A Summary of Existing Knowledge (1906, with Alfred H. Brooks and Richard Urquhart Goode)
The Climate of Alaska (1906)
The Mechanics of the Earth's Atmosphere (1910)
