Immeasurable Weather: Meteorological Data and Settler Colonialism from 1820 to Hurricane Sandy

Sara J. Grossman's book "Immeasurable Weather" explores how environmental data collection has been used to support settler colonialism in the United States by showing how American scientific institutions used information about the weather to establish and reinforce the foundations of a white patriarchal settler society. Grossman outlines the relationship between climate data and state power in key moments in the history of American weather science, demonstrating that weather sciences impact cannot be reduced to a set of quantifiable phenomena.

Format: Hardback
Length: 264 pages
Publication date: 25 August 2023
Publisher: Duke University Press

Sara J. Grossman delves into the profound impact of environmental data collection on the broader project of settler colonialism in the United States. Through an extensive archive spanning two centuries, she reveals how American scientific institutions utilized weather information to establish and reinforce the foundations of a white patriarchal settler society. Grossman meticulously outlines the intricate relationship between climate data and state power, tracing its evolution from the nineteenth-century practices of settler farmers and teachers, where they gathered public data, to the automation of weather data during the Dust Bowl era, and the subsequent integration of meteorological satellites into the militarized state. Throughout her work, Grossman underscores that weather science not only replicated the natural world but also commodified it, rendering it measurable, possessable, and exploitable. This data gathering, she argues, provided coherence to a national weather project and shaped a notion of the nation itself, emphasizing that the impact of weather sciences extends beyond a mere collection of quantifiable phenomena.

In Immeasurable Weather, Sara J. Grossman explores the central role of environmental data collection in the perpetuation of settler colonialism in the United States. Drawing upon an extensive archive of historical and meteorological data spanning two centuries, Grossman demonstrates how American scientific institutions have utilized information about the weather to establish and reinforce the foundations of a white patriarchal settler society. Grossman meticulously outlines the relationship between climate data and state power, tracing its evolution from the nineteenth-century practices of settler farmers and teachers, where they gathered public data, to the automation of weather data during the Dust Bowl era, and the subsequent integration of meteorological satellites into the militarized state. Throughout her work, Grossman underscores that weather science not only replicated the natural world but also commodified it, rendering it measurable, possessable, and exploitable. This data gathering, she argues, provided coherence to a national weather project and shaped a notion of the nation itself, emphasizing that the impact of weather sciences extends beyond a mere collection of quantifiable phenomena.

Weight: 508g
Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781478020059