My Atmospheric Life

by Dr. Ed Berry

(editing in process)

At Caltech, I learned electrical and systems engineering and physics, but not the scientific method. I was an AF ROTC pilot trainee who wanted to fly the jets.

One week before graduation, the Air Force officer told us Congress had reduced its budget for pilots. So, he said, we could either draw straws to see who got to fly an airplane and who got to fly a desk, or we could choose an honorable discharge. The idea of flying a desk for four years frightened me so much that I chose the honorable discharge. (In retrospect, if I had not taken my honorable discharge, I might have taken Gordon Fullerton’s long straw and destroyed his excellent career as a pilot. He was the best pilot in our class.)

Sacramento State University hired me to be a physics instructor. One day, a notice on the bulletin board said Dartmouth College was offering six Teaching Fellowships in Physics. I applied, they accepted me, and that changed my life.

Dartmouth gave me a Teaching Fellowship in Physics.

Dartmouth gave me an excellent physics education. In addition, learned from John Kemeny, a former math assistant to Albert Einstein, who later became Chairman of the Mathematics and Philosophy Departments. I took Kemeny’s courses in Markov Chains and the Philosophy of Science, which included the scientific method. These courses were critical to my future in science.

My MA thesis was a whistler experiment where we sent electromagnetic waves into the atmosphere and observed their reflections.

Nevada gave me a Research Fellowship in Atmospheric Physics.

After my MA at Dartmouth, I looked for a university where I could major in atmospheric physics rather than general physics. The U of Nevada had just started a PhD program in atmospheric physics and funded it through its new Desert Research Institute (DRI). I became its first PhD student.

DRI helped Nevada hire the best physicists to teach me. My excellent mentors were Friedwart Winterberg, the best student of Nobel Laureate Werner Heisenberg, and William T. Scott. Winterberg wrote, years later, “Dr. Ed Berry was my best student in 50 years of teaching physics.”

My PhD thesis was to calculate how quickly small cloud droplets can grow by collision and coalescence into raindrops in an ice-free tropical cloud. For perspective, it takes about 1 trillion (10^12) small cloud droplets, 10 microns (10^-6 m) in diameter, to make one raindrop 1 millimeter (10^-2 m) in diameter. Each pair of colliding droplets had a unique probability of coalescing.

It was impossible to perform this calculation with bins because it would require 10 trillion bins. So, I developed a new mathematical structure for my numerical calculations. My calculations predicted rain would form in 20 minutes, as observed.

However, the scientific method says that good predictions do not prove that an assumption, such as a numerical model, is correct. So, I used my model to predict the three known analytic solutions of the collection equation. William T. Scott derived two of these analytic solutions while I worked on my numerical solution.

My model exactly predicted the three known analytic solutions that bounded known cloud conditions. This indicated my model represented reality.

My thesis began a new field in cloud physics that continues today. Researchers have added ice, electric charge, and turbulence to my model, yet they still cite my foundational work from 60 years ago.

The Director of Nevada’s Desert Research Institute said my PhD thesis “put Nevada’s DRI on the map.” It also gave me significant worldwide professional recognition.

I lived climate physics outside of textbooks.

I flew sailplanes off dry lakes. Once got sucked into a growing cumulus cloud and had to spin out to survive. Made a zero-zero landing in a dust storm. Been in updrafts of 4000 feet per minute. Way outside what you can learn in textbooks.

I was chief scientist for the Desert Research Institute’s Airborne Research. With a professional Navy pilot in command of DRI’s multi-engine aircraft, I flew copilot in research flights through Sierra Nevada winter ice storms, iced up and almost had to land in Lake Tahoe, cruised wave clouds at 26,000 feet, survived Alberta hail storms, and sampled the insides of geysers in Yellowstone National Park and once flew below the roof line of Yellowstone Lodge, in the winter of course.

I consulted on DOD’s weather modification experiments. Participated in weather modification experiments worldwide. The only civilian to participate in DOD’s then top-secret Project Popeye.

The National Science Foundation appointed me as its Program Manager for Weather Modification, where I oversaw METROMEX and the National Hail Research Experiment, as well as numerous university research projects.

The University of Nevada Alumni Association awarded me with its Professional Achievement Award.

I showed the FAA how to prevent airline crashes caused by wind shear in the 1970’s.

I have been a Certified Consulting Meteorologist (CCM) since 1978. I have never lost a lawsuit.

In 1992, the California Attorney General brought a murder charge against Joe Hunt of the Billionaire Boys Club. Joe hired me to be his key expert witness. Joe Hunt, not an attorney, was the smartest “attorney” I ever worked for. He was his own defense attorney. He designed the tactics that followed the scientific method.

Today, I use Joe Hunt’s tactics to plan defenses in climate lawsuits. The way to defeat a climate lawsuit is to identify the plaintiffs’ assumptions and prove them false, simply and quickly. Then shut up.

In Joe Hunt’s trial, I made courtroom history by developing and defending the first computer model to generate new evidence in a criminal trial. I compiled the other experts’ testimonies to reach a conclusion that proved the plaintiffs’ experts lied.

That is how to defeat a climate lawsuit.

My numerical model combined the other expert witnesses’ testimony with the weather. We proved the prosecution’s witness lied. The two California AGs kept me on the stand for five days until I put them in a box after one of their questions. The jury voted that the defendant was “innocent.” Joe Hunt won, not me.

My courtroom model won the People’s Choice Award at Microsoft’s Windows World Open software contest, beating over 1,300 entries.

My theoretical understanding of fluid dynamics helped me understand wind and water flow, giving me an edge in winning world and national sailing championships in a high-performance centerboard-trapeze-spinnaker sailboat, becoming the first to do so with a woman crew, who was my wife.

To keep my health, I hold Concept2 indoor rowing age-group lightweight world records in the 100m and one-minute events.