Gordon Manley

It provides a benchmark for proxy records of climatic change for the period covered, and is a notable example of scientific scholarship and perseverance (it took over thirty years to complete).

After obtaining degrees in engineering and geography at Victoria University of Manchester and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge respectively, Manley joined the Meteorological Office in 1925, but resigned the following year.

[3] He became Curator of Durham University Observatory in 1931, where he did much work on standardising the long temperature record that dated back to the mid-nineteenth century.

He subsequently established a meteorological station close to the summit of Great Dun Fell at 847m, which recorded data at three-hour intervals from 1938 to 1940.

Manley interpreted the phenomenon in hydrodynamic terms as a standing wave and rotor, a model confirmed in 1939 by glider flights.

He maintained his links with Cambridge, one result being the joint participation of undergraduates from both institutions in expeditions to Norway and Iceland.

At the time of his death he was assembling instrumental data for the north of England and Scotland back to the 18th century.