A CONFERENCE ON CLIMATOLOGY AND RELATED FIELDS IN THE CARIBBEAN: A REPORTAND SOME RECOMMENDATIONSAuthor(s): BARRY FLOYDSource: Caribbean Quarterly, Vol. 12, No. 3 (September, 1966), pp. 50-53Published by: University of the West Indies and Caribbean QuarterlyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40652974 .

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Commentary A CONFERENCE ON CLIMATOLOGY AND RELATED FIELDS IN THE CARIBBEAN: A REPORT AND SOME RECOMMENDATIONS.

UNDER the sponsorship of the Geography Division of the Geology and Geography Department of the University of the West Indies, also the Scientific Research Council of Jaanaica, a three-day confer- ence on applied climatology was held at Mona from September 20th. to 22nd. 1966. Some thirty delegates attended, from Trinidad, Puerto Rico, Guadeloupe, Jamaica, Canada and the USA, in what is believed to be the first attempt in the Caribbean to bring together academicians, professional climatologists and interested laymen concerned with the application of climatological data and research to the problems of economic development and other facets of the emergent societies in the Caribbean.

The real need for a personal exchange of ideas and information, and a chance to establish contacts and to co-ordinate research endeavours, were the motivating .forces which encouraged the con- ference organizers to bring their plans to fruition. It was felt too that the conference would assist the University, various Governmental agencies, the Scientific Research Council and overseas institutions to be better informed on past and current climatological research in the Caribbean area. Data collection at various levels of sophistication and through different types of instruments, the classification and statis- tical processing of resulting atmospheric measurements, the mapping and analysis of data, and their application to such activities as agri- culture, forestry, building and engineering, the:e and other aspects of the science of climatology were considered appropriate topics for review and discussion at the conference.

New Concepts in Climatology.

As in virtually every other discipline in both the natural and the social sciences, there have been some remarkable conceptual devel- opments in the field of climatology in recent years. While the all- pervasive nature of atmospheric environmental conditions has been long appreciated - the impact of the elements of weather and climate on, for example, landforms, vegetation, soils, agricultural land use, house design, road and bridge construction, etc., was recorded by Greek and Roman obeervers - investigations in the most recent past have become too heavily compartmentalized into specialized disciplines. This has tended to draw one's attention away from the essential unity

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and inter-connectedness of the conditions of the natural environ- ment. Today, environmental scientists are looking anew at the vital connections between their specialized areas of research and there is a "growing awareness that the sciences dealing with the physical en- viron'ment are not a collection of separate and distant fields of scientific interest, but rather a unified group of disciplines." i

Thus in the U.S.A. the time-honoured and »familiar agency of the Weather Bureau has 'been replaced by a much larger and more com- prehensive organization, the Environmental Science Services Adminis- tration (ESSA). The desirability of, and the prospects for, such a development for the countries of the Caribbean were also considered a legitimate topic .for discussion at the UWI Climatological Conference.

The new emphasis on environmental climatology depends increas- ingly on a study of exchange processes. The outstanding change in climatology during the last decade has been a shift away from such parameters as temperature and relative humidity, and towards the measurement of fluxes. Climatologists have become concerned with the movements and transformation of energy in the atmospheric boundary layer, in the plant-cover and in the soil. "It is not air temperature that is per se significant; it is the heat exchange that occurs at the leaf, sea, soil or skin surface. Rainfall alone is not enough; we have to consider the evaporative losses also, again off leaf, sea, soil and skin . . . Once we begin to ask the question - what, effectively, is climate as environment? - we find ourselves carried more and more deeply into most of the territories of the various environmental disciplines." 2 Thus the science of climate is a marvellously catholic study. It is the obvious cementing matrix for the environmental sciences.

The necessity for recognizing these new viewpoints in Anglo- American climatology and of assessing their significance to Caribbean environmental studies were further themes which could be traced throughout the conference programme at Mona.

The Conference Programme. The following papers were delivered at the conference and stimu-

lated considerable discussion both during the formal sessions and in aíter-session conversations.

Dr. John Griffiths (Dept. of Oceanography and Meteorology, Texas A. and M. University), "General Trends in Pure and Applied Climatology."

Dr. David Smedley (Chief, Foreign Branch, Environmental Data Ser- vice, Environmental Science Services Administration, USA), "The Availability of Climatological Information for the Caribbean Area."

1. John T. Connor, U.S. Secretary of Commerce (June 1965). Z. P. Kenneth Hare, "The Concept of Climate," Geography, Vo». 51 (I960), 106-107.

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Dr. George Smith (Soil and Land Use Section, Regional Research Centre, University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad). 'The Estimation of Soil Moisture Status in Low Latitudes."

Mr. Alan Eyre (Geography Division, Geology and Geography Dept., UWI), "The Concept of Water Surplus and Water Deficit and its usefulness in Caribbean Climatology."

(Mr. Eyre was the originator of the plan to hold a Climatological Con- ference at Mona).

Dr. B. J. Gamier (Professor of Climatology, McGill University, Montreal; Bellairs Research Institute oí McGill University in Barbados) , "Biological Research in the Caribbean.'* (paper read by Mr. David Tout, in absence of Prof. Gamier)

Dr. J. Fougerouze (Centre de Recherches agronomiques des Antilles et de la Guyane, Guadeloupe), "La Bioclimatologie Agricole aux Antilles Françaises/'

Mr. C. W. Hewitt (Soil Chemist, Ministry of Agriculture and Lands, Hope, Kingston), "The Relationship between Rainfall Variation and Agri- cultural Production."

Dr. Robert J. Calvesbert (Commonwealth Climatologist, Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands, Environmental Science Services Administration, San Juan), "The Climatology of Meteorological Drought in Puerto Rico."

Mr. D. O. Vickers (Divisional Assistant Director, Caribbean Meteoro- logical Service, Palisadoes, Kingston), "Very Heavy and Intense Precipitation in Jamaica."

Mr. Ole Dytobroe (United Nations Adviser on Building Research to the Scientific Council, Jamaica), "Design for Comfort in a Tropical Environment."

Mr. Jackson McL. Wint (Scientific Research Council, Ja'maica), "Hurricane Precautions for Tropical Building."

Mr. R. Simpson (Engineering Hydrologist, Howard Humphreys and Sons, Jamaica), "The Hydrological Investigation of the Yallahs River Catchment, S.E. Jamaica."

Mr. K. C. Hall (Forests Department, Jamaica), "Shelterbelts and Climatology."

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In addition to the presentation of papers at the Trade Union Education Centre- the venue for the Climatological Conference- an afternoon was devoted to an excursion to the Jamaica Sugar Manu- facturers Association Research Laboratories at Mandeville, where con- ference delegates met with the Assistant Director, Dr. T. Chin-Loy, and talked with other members of the Laboratories on climatological factors in sugar production and pest control.

It is hoped that the proceedings of the Conference, with texts of the papers presented and summaries of the discussions which ensued, will be published in due course by the Scientific Research Council of Jamaica.

Recommendations.

It would clearly be desirable if further Environmental Science symposia could be held in the Caribbean area, with as strong an inter- disciplinarian emphasis as the conference sponsored at Mona. In a "summing-up" session, it was recommended that a second gathering of environmental scientists be called for in 1968 in the Eastern Carib- bean, and a planning committee of four members (with powers to co-opt) was elected to implement this recommendation:

Dr. G. Smith (Chairman) Dr. R. Calvesbert Mr. C. Hewitt Mr. D. Vickers

It is also proposed that support for the second conference be solicited from such bodies as the Institute of Applied Meteorology (Barbados) ; the Institute of Caribbean Studies (Puerto Rico) ; the International Society of Biometeorology; the American Meteorological Society; the Royal Meteorological Society; the National Science Foundation (USA) .

BARRY FLOYD Geography Division, Geology & Geography Dept., University of the West Indies.

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