The Norwegian Meteorological institute has celebrated its 150th anniversary this year. It was founded to provide weather data and tentative warnings to farmers, sailors, and fishermen. The inception of Norwegian climatology in the mid-1800s started with studies of geographical climatic variations to adapt important infrastructure to the ambient climate. The purpose of the meteorology and climatology was to protect lives and properties.
The journey from the early history of meteorology and climatology to the present weather forecasts and climate research is one of mankind’s great success stories. In the early days, there was a belief that the weather was influenced by sunspots and northern lights, but this notion lost its traction as meteorology and became more and more successful in forecasting.