ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I could not have written this book without the expertise and generosity of many people. Speaking with scientists who study water in the oceans, water vapor in the atmosphere, and ice in glaciers and ice sheets has been one of the principal pleasures of writing it. I am happy for the opportunity to thank these generous people here. David Marshall enthusiastically shared his knowledge and loaned me several all-important but hard-to-find volumes from Stommel’s Collected Works. Carl Wunsch read and commented on several chapters, sharing his historical sensitivity and mastery of the field. During a 2017 visit to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Rui Xin Huang shared his memories of Henry Stommel and made sure I understood something of the special culture of the place, including the GFD seminar. At Woods Hole, Joe Pedlosky and John Marshall also spent time talking with me about both the history and current state of physical oceanography. Back in the UK, Giles Harrison welcomed me to Reading, shared his work on atmospheric physics, and inducted me into the joyful practice of balloon launchings.

I am grateful to the following people for reading and commenting on draft chapters: George Adamson, Matthias Heymann, Mike Hulme, Peggy LeMone, David Marshall, Richard Staley, Spencer Weart, Ed Zipser, and the participants of the following seminars: “Towards a History of Paleoclimatology: Changing Roles and Shifting Scales in Climate Sciences,” a workshop held at the Centre for Environmental Humanities at the University of Hamburg, September 6–7, 2017; “Estimated Truths: Water, Science and Politics of Approximation,” held at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, August 16–17, 2017; and a summer school on “History of Physics: Scientific Instruments and Environmental Physics” convened by the St. Cross Centre for the History and Philosophy of Physics Centre at Brasenose College, Oxford, August 20–24, 2018. I also benefited from conversations and emails with Karen Aplin, Wallace Broecker, Harry Bryden, Ian Hewitt, Jim Ledwell, Martin Mahony, Dennis Moore, Walter Munk, Chris Rapley, Emily Shuckburgh, John Tennyson, Chris Wilson, and two anonymous reviewers for the University of Chicago Press. All remaining errors are mine alone. In addition, I want to thank Dave Sherman at the Data Library and Archives of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; Diana Carey at the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute; Karen Moran at the Library of the Royal Observatory Edinburgh; and the staff at the Institute Archives and Special Collections, MIT, the Royal Society in London, and the Bodleian Library in Oxford.

I am grateful to have Peter Tallack of the Science Factory as my agent, and have benefited from two superb editors: Karen Merikangas Darling, at the University of Chicago Press, and Philip Gwyn Jones, at Scribe UK. This book is much the better for their thoughtful and enthusiastic engagement. It is also better thanks to the support of a 2015–2016 Public Scholar grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Friends who have helped keep me afloat include Hayley MacGregor, Sylvie Zannier-Betts, Signe Gosmann, Liz Woolley, Laura Stark, Patrick Tripp, and Susie Reiss. Thanks to all. Now we can finally talk about something else.

My parents, Paul and Cecie Dry, and my sister, Katie Dry, have always supported me, and this book is no exception. I am grateful for their unconditional love and patience with a project that overflowed all of the deadlines I set for it.

At home, I am lucky to have two special people: Jacob, who buoys me like no other, and Rob, who always believes in me.