Page 231 - James Rodger Fleming - Fixing the sky

Wexler’s scientific input through the State Department, had issued a resolution
on international cooperation in the peaceful uses of outer space, recommending
“greater knowledge of basic physical forces affecting climate and the possibility of
large-scale weather modification.” Before this, statements about controlling the
62
atmosphere had typically been provided by non-meteorologists: chemists, cloud-
seeding enthusiasts, futurists, generals, and admirals.
Wexler was none of the above. He was one of the most influential meteo-
rologists of the first half of the twentieth century, and his career, as revealed in
his publications and well-preserved office files, touched every aspect of weather
and climate science. He was born in 1911 in Fall River, Massachusetts, and died
suddenly of a heart attack in August 1962 at age fifty-one during a working
vacation in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. The third son of Russian immigrants
Samuel and Mamie (Hornstein) Wexler, Harry was interested in science at an
early age, an interest he shared with his childhood friend and future brother-in-
law, the noted meteorologist Jerome Namias. Wexler majored in mathematics
at Harvard University, graduating magna cum laude in 1932. He then attended
MIT, earning his master's degree in 1934 and his doctorate in 1939 under the
mentorship of the influential meteorologist Carl-Gustav Rossby. Wexler
worked for the U.S. Weather Bureau throughout his career, initially on opera-
tionalizing Bergen School techniques for air mass and frontal analysis and later
as head of research.
Following the outbreak of war in Europe, Wexler served in the U.S. military’s
crash program to train a new cadre of weather forecasters. on a leave of absence
from the weather bureau, he taught at the University of Chicago as an assistant
professor of meteorology. In 1941 he returned to the weather bureau as senior
meteorologist in charge of training and research, working to assist in defense
preparations. He accepted a commission as captain in the U.S. Army in 1942 and
served as the senior instructor of meteorology to the U.S. Army Air Force’s Avia-
tion Cadet School at Grand Rapids, Michigan. While in this position, he joined
the University Meteorological Committee, established to coordinate military
efforts in meteorological training. 63
After his honorable discharge in January 1946 with the rank of lieutenant
colonel, Wexler returned to the weather bureau, becoming chief of the Special
Scientific Services division and serving on the Pentagon’s Research and Devel-
opment Board. In this capacity, he encouraged the development of new tech-
nologies, including tracing nuclear fallout, airborne observations of hurricanes,
sounding rockets, and weather radar. He was a pioneer in the use of electronic
computers for numerical weather prediction and general circulation modeling,
serving as the weather bureau liaison to von Neumann’s IAS meteorology project

214 | fearS, fantaSieS, and PoSSibilitieS of Control