Editing Timeline of meteorology (section)

==Antiquity==
* 3000 BC – Meteorology in India can be traced back to around 3000&nbsp;BC, with writings such as the [[Upanishads]], containing discussions about the processes of cloud formation and rain and the seasonal cycles caused by the movement of the Earth around the Sun.<ref name="IMD History">{{cite web|publisher=India Meteorological Department |url=https://mausam.imd.gov.in/imd_latest/contents/history.php |title=History of Meteorological Services in India |date=August 10, 2020 |access-date=August 10, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160219093330/http://www.imd.gov.in/pages/about_history.php |archive-date=February 19, 2016 |url-status=live }}</ref>
* 600 BC – [[Thales]] may qualify as the first Greek meteorologist. He reputedly issues the first seasonal crop forecast.
* 400 BC – There is some evidence that [[Democritus]] predicted changes in the weather, and that he used this ability to convince people that he could predict other future events.<ref name="NOAA" />
* 400 BC – [[Hippocrates]] writes a treatise called ''Airs, Waters and Places'', the earliest known work to include a discussion of weather. More generally, he wrote about common diseases that occur in particular locations, seasons, winds and air.<ref name="NOAA" />
* 350 BC – The Greek philosopher [[Aristotle]] writes ''[[Meteorology (Aristotle)|Meteorology]]'', a work which represents the sum of knowledge of the time about [[Earth science]]s, including weather and climate. It is the first known work that attempts to treat a broad range of meteorological topics.<ref name="Ancient">{{cite web |editor1=Toth, Garry |editor2=Hillger, Don | title=Ancient and pre-Renaissance Contributors to Meteorology| year=2007 | url=http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/dev/hillger/ancient.htm#biruni |publisher=Colorado State University| access-date=2014-11-30}}</ref> For the first time, precipitation and the clouds from which precipitation falls are called meteors, which originate from the Greek word ''meteoros'', meaning 'high in the sky'. From that word comes the modern term [[meteorology]], the study of clouds and weather. 
:Although the term ''meteorology'' is used today to describe a subdiscipline of the atmospheric sciences, Aristotle's work is more general.  Meteorologica is based on intuition and simple observation, but not on what is now considered the scientific method. In his own words:
::''...all the affections we may call common to air and water, and the kinds and parts of the earth and the affections of its parts.''<ref name="Aristotle">{{cite book|last=Aristotle |title=Meteorology |url=http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/a/aristotle/meteorology/ |year=2004 |publisher=eBooks@Adelaide |translator=E. W. Webster |orig-year=350 BCE |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070217110549/http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/a/aristotle/meteorology/ |archive-date=February 17, 2007 }}</ref>

::The magazine ''[[De Mundo]]'' (attributed to [[Pseudo-Aristotle]]) notes:<ref name=1908DeMundo>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/demundoarisrich|title=De Mundo|year=1914|author=Aristotle |translator=Forster, E. S. |chapter=Chapter 4 |location=Oxford |publisher=The Clarendon Press}}</ref> 
::''Cloud is a vaporous mass, concentrated and producing water. Rain is produced from the compression of a closely condensed cloud, varying according to the pressure exerted on the cloud; when the pressure is slight it scatters gentle drops; when it is great it produces a more violent fall, and we call this a shower, being heavier than ordinary rain, and forming continuous masses of water falling over earth. Snow is produced by the breaking up of condensed clouds, the cleavage taking place before the change into water; it is the process of cleavage which causes its resemblance to foam and its intense whiteness, while the cause of its coldness is the congelation of the moisture in it before it is dispersed or rarefied. When snow is violent and falls heavily we call it a blizzard. Hail is produced when snow becomes densified and acquires impetus for a swifter fall from its close mass; the weight becomes greater and the fall more violent in proportion to the size of the broken fragments of cloud. Such then are the phenomena which occur as the result of moist exhalation.''
:One of the most impressive achievements in ''[[Meteorology (Aristotle)|Meteorology]]'' is his description of what is now known as the [[hydrologic cycle]]:
::''Now the sun, moving as it does, sets up processes of change and becoming and decay, and by its agency the finest and sweetest water is every day carried up and is dissolved into vapour and rises to the upper region, where it is condensed again by the cold and so returns to the earth.''<ref name="Aristotle" />

[[Image:Bust of Aristotle.jpg|right|thumb|100px|Aristotle]]

*Several years after Aristotle's book, his pupil [[Theophrastus]] puts together a book on [[weather forecasting]] called ''The Book of Signs''. Various indicators such as solar and lunar halos formed by high clouds are presented as ways to forecast the weather. The combined works of Aristotle and Theophrastus have such authority they become the main influence in the study of clouds, weather and weather forecasting for nearly 2000 years.<ref name="Ancient"/>
* 250 BC – [[Archimedes]] studies the concepts of [[buoyancy]] and the hydrostatic principle. Positive buoyancy is necessary for the formation of convective clouds ([[cumulus cloud|cumulus]], [[cumulus congestus]] and [[cumulonimbus]]).<ref name="NOAA" />
* 25 AD – [[Pomponius Mela]], a geographer for the [[Roman Empire]], formalizes the climatic zone system.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.paleorama.com/timelines/geography.html| title = Timeline of geography, paleontology| publisher = Paleorama.com| quote = Following the path of Discovery}}</ref>
* c. 80 AD – In his ''[[Lunheng]]'' (論衡; Critical Essays), the [[Han dynasty]] Chinese philosopher [[Wang Chong]] (27–97 AD) dispels the [[China|Chinese]] myth of rain coming from the heavens, and states that rain is evaporated from water on the earth into the air and forms clouds, stating that clouds condense into rain and also form dew, and says when the clothes of people in high mountains are moistened, this is because of the air-suspended rain water.<ref name="Needham">Needham, Joseph (1986). ''[[Science and Civilization in China]]: Volume 3, Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth''. Taipei: Caves Books Ltd.</ref> However, Wang Chong supports his theory by quoting a similar one of Gongyang Gao's,<ref name="Needham"/> the latter's commentary on the ''[[Spring and Autumn Annals]]'', the [[Gongyang Zhuan]], compiled in the 2nd century BC,<ref name="Needham"/> showing that the Chinese conception of rain evaporating and rising to form clouds goes back much farther than Wang Chong. Wang Chong wrote:
::''As to this coming of rain from the mountains, some hold that the clouds carry the rain with them, dispersing as it is precipitated (and they are right). Clouds and rain are really the same thing. Water evaporating upwards becomes clouds, which condense into rain, or still further into dew.''<ref name="Needham"/>