who was among the first scientists to draw attention to the natural variability of climates and the social and economic effects of climate change, which he described in his detailed studies of climate history. He studied geography at Cambridge University and in 1936 joined the staff of the Meteorological Office. After refusing to work on the meteorology of spraying poisonous gas, he was transferred to the Irish Meteorological Office, but resigned in 1945, after a disagreement with the director, and returned to the UK Meteorological Office in 1946. In the following years he travelled to Antarctica and in 1954 was transferred to the climatology department of the Meteorological Office. He left this post in 1971 to establish the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia and was its director until his retirement in 1977.