Luke Howard: The Namer of Clouds
As a young boy growing up in England, Luke Howard (1773-1864) attended grammar school at Burford, a village to the west of London. But Luke was more interested in the books about nature than in volumes of the Greek and Latin classics.
During Luke Howard's school years, high levels of dust from volcanic eruptions in Iceland and Japan caused the sky to have a dazzling appearance. Luke Howard was amazed by the clouds and complicated patterns within them. For him, it made more sense that clouds had properties.
Before 1800, most scientists felt that clouds we…
