Forrest Mims to Accept ASLI’s Choice Award for History

Mims-Hawaii'sMaunaLoaAtmospheric Science Librarians International (ASLI) has selected Hawai‘i’s Mauna Loa Observatory: Fifty Years of Monitoring the Atmosphere for the ASLI’s Choice 2012 Award in the History category. The book was praised for its “engaging perspective on the scientists, discoveries, and ground-breaking atmospheric measurements done at Mauna Loa Observatory.”

Author Forrest M. Mims III will attend the official presentation on Wednesday, January 9, 2013 during the American Meteorological Society annual meeting in Austin, Texas. (Mims recently wrote two articles on Dr. Robert Simpson, the founder of the Mauna Loa Observatory, who celebrated his 100th birthday last month.) ASLI’s Choice is an award for the best book of 2012 in the fields of meteorology / climatology / atmospheric sciences. Visit the ASLI website for more information on award criteria and past winners.

Founder of Mauna Loa Observatory Celebrates His 100th Birthday

Dr. Robert Simpson, who founded the Mauna Loa Observatory, the world’s best-known atmospheric monitoring station, recently celebrated his 100th birthday in Washington, D.C. He also served as the first director of the National Hurricane Center.

In 1948 Simpson supervised the construction of an unmanned weather station atop Mauna Loa. The station began collecting data in 1951 but was abandoned a few years later because maintaining the road to the summit proved too difficult. Later, a chance meeting with Ralph Stair, a scientist who was attempting to measure the intensity of light from the sun, would lead directly to Simpson’s founding Mauna Loa Observatory.

Simpson wrote the Foreword to Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Observatory: Fifty Years of Monitoring the Atmosphere, by Forrest M. Mims III, published by UH Press in 2011.