{"id":2479,"date":"2025-10-21T11:23:03","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T10:23:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/chstm\/?p=2479"},"modified":"2025-11-28T09:46:53","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T09:46:53","slug":"chstm-research-seminar-25-november-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/chstm\/2025\/10\/21\/chstm-research-seminar-25-november-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"NEW DATE: CHSTM Research Seminar, 2 December 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Rescheduled from 25 November<\/strong><\/h1>\n

2 December 2025, 3pm<\/strong>\u00a0GMT
Simon Building, Room 2.57 [maps and travel]<\/a>
Online Access https:\/\/zoom.us\/j\/91525520671<\/a><\/p>\n

Gemma Cirac-Claveras, Autonomous University of Barcelona<\/h2>\n

Data Wars: International Data Sharing (or not) in Meteorology, 1980s-1990s<\/h1>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

During the 1980s, some national weather services began commercializing part of the meteorological data they collected with surface stations, radar networks and balloons. Accordingly, they ceased to supply part of the data to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the United Nations body in charge of weather affairs and mandated to redistribute the data among all its State Members. These policies created tensions with those weather services committed to the free and unrestricted data exchange -some of them responded in kind and stopped providing their data too. This escalation of data retaliation, known by the actors as the \u201cData Wars\u201d, threatened the international system of data sharing encouraged by WMO since its creation in 1950, based on making weather data collected with national resources accessible to all. By the early 1990s, WMOs officers and professional meteorologists feared that the data sharing system would collapse. This crisis was eventually averted by the \u201cResolution-40\u201d adopted unanimously during the 1995 WMO Congress, which aimed to regulate what data should be shared unrestrictedly with all and what for which commercial fees could be applied. Some years later, along the 2010s, the increasing presence of private companies providing weather data on a commercial basis on the one hand, and the shift of data management from governmental-funded programs to Big Tech corporations through their cloud infrastructures on the other hand, challenged the truce marked by \u201cResolution-40\u201d and destabilized, once again, the international system of weather data sharing.<\/p>\n

In this talk, I will look at these turbulent episodes to illustrate various institutional, technological, political and financial efforts and frictions involved in maintaining an international system of data sharing in meteorology, and the power relations that go with them. Ultimately, I will argue that, despite common discourses and imaginaries of collaboration in meteorology practice, be it for war, finances, trade or other interests, what data is shared, with whom, and under what conditions is something that must be explained historically.<\/p>\n

Gemma Cirac-Claveras\u00a0<\/strong>is a research professor at the Institute of History of Science at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. She obtained her PhD from the Ecole des Hautes \u00c9tudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris). Her career has taken her to various prestigious institutions including the Alexandre Koyr\u00e9 Centre (Paris), the Centre National d’\u00c9tudes Spatiales (Toulouse), the Pierre Simon Laplace Institute (Paris), the National Air and Space Museum (Washington DC), the Laboratoire Techniques, Territoires et Soci\u00e9t\u00e9s (Marne), the Universit\u00e9 Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona), among others.<\/p>\n

Her research delves into the history of satellite Earth observation technology, focusing on the intricate web of techniques, knowledge, practices, institutions, actors, and ideas shaping the production, dissemination, and utilization of satellite-generated data. She investigates the power dynamics inherent in these processes and their far-reaching environmental, social, and political ramifications.<\/p>\n

Recognized for her contributions, Gemma has been honored with awards from prominent organizations such as NASA, the History of Science Society (2015), the American Institute of Physics (2016), the European Space Agency (2017 and 2023), and the International Committee for the History of Technology (2016 and 2021). Since 2022, she has been coordinating the project called “CLIMASAT: Remote-sensing Satellite Data and Making of Global Climate in Europe, 1980s-2000s”, funded by an ERC Starting Grant.<\/p>\n

All welcome!<\/p>\n

Seminar Programme on the CHSTM Website<\/a><\/p>\n

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Related<\/h1>\n

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CHSTM Research Seminar, 3 February 2026<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/a>
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CHSTM Research Seminar: 23 May 2023<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/a>
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CHSTM Research Seminar: 12 March 2024<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/a><\/div>
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