Observing Micrometeorology: A Personal Tour through an Evolving Science

In early 1962, at the age of 21, Bruce Hicks found himself temporarily in charge of a micrometeorological experimental program conducted at Kerang, in Victoria (Australia). He had no schooling in the atmospheric sciences, and so started a self-education program based on (a) what he saw with his own eyes, (b) what his mentors told him and (c) textbook lore. He quickly discovered that others in that group of researchers at CSIRO in Australia (under the leadership of C. H. B. Priestley) shared his misgivings about some of the science that was then rapidly becoming disciplinary dogma. A career in experimental meteorology followed, accompanied by bursts of unrestrained iconoclasm. After migrating to the USA in 1973 and serving a sojourn as Director of the Air Resources Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, he returned to his favorite science with new vigor in 2006. He quickly found that new instrumentation and new researchers were yielding mountains of reasons to reconsider what textbooks often teach. His book reveals the bases for his revised understanding of air-surface exchange, the surface boundary layer, and the atmospheric and terrestrial features that influence them. This is not a textbook. Rather, it is a summary of how the teachings of textbooks might be interpreted in the light of information more recently available. This is an update of the basics that underpinned an evolving science before it was kidnapped by computers and modeling. He is not trying to change the science. Oh, heck. Yes, he is.