Contenu du sommaire : Météo / Espaces péri-urbains

Landscape after a Storm. Aftereffects of a Natural Catastrophe : Order and Disorder in the Cultural Realm What is eventful in a natural catastrophe is not the declarations, in public or in secret, of those who experienced it but rather the capacity to emit a message. For this reason, the gravity of a catastrophe depends on the power of the means of information. On the contrary, private language following a catastrophe (herein, a tempest in Brittany, France, in October 1987) temporarily modifies the signs of power. It reorganizes meaning following nature's disorganization. It anthropomorphizes : "Nature is wreaking vengeance." Catastrophes generate a spontaneous etiology which, often expressed in terms of excess and scarcity, represents a metaphorical interpretation of the disjunction between the individual and his collective destiny, between individual and social power. This "crisis language" seeks to be effective insofar as it reinforces images of one's self and identities that could never be better expressed than during tribulations.

Rain and Wind, Images of Destiny : The Emperor's Power and Weather Control in Japan The imperial lineage, theoretically continuous since Japan's foundation by an offspring of the sun goddess, has the duties of keeping the calendar and making the weather. Native thought sets climatic irregularities down to pernicious or ambivalent divinities, whom the emperor has to worship. According to cosmological concepts imported from China, these irregularities are omens, whence their importance in the criticism of imperial authority. Under the influence of Buddhist morals, which also came from the continent, they are taken to be the result of human faults, in particular of the neglect of ancestor worship. Climatic irregularities are ripples on the surface of regular weather patterns, the meager consequences of divine whims or human mistakes.

Meteorology between Science and Know-How. The Mathieu de la Drôme Affair In 1863, Mathieu de la Drôme, a politician and inventor, published his theories of weather forecasting in an almanac that became very popular in France. For his calculations, he had asked Urbain Le Verrier, an astronomer and the director of the Paris Observatory, permission to consult the Meteorology Office's records of precipitation. Le Verrier refused because Mathieu's method of calculation was not serious but especially because he did not want it to be known that the official registers had not been kept with the necessary degree of exactitude. The clash between the two men was big news from 1863 to 1865 ; politicians, journalists and scientists became involved. Mathieu de la Drôme was persuaded of the veracity of his forecasts at a time when scientific meteorology, in its infancy, could not provide sure answers to farmers' and sailors' queries about the weather.

Weather Observations and Learned Societies in the Provinces : Designating the Proper Scientific Object (1821-1878). Setting up a dense network of weather observation stations (which would be placed under departmental meteorological services) was a long-term project in 19th-century France. The head scientific institution centralized at the Paris Observatory preferred relying on learned societies in the provinces. Society members had to be convinced of the need of keeping, in a useable form, technical, scientific observations of the weather. Only then would they accept to become the docile agents of a national network providing standardized data interpreted by the center. The case of Charente-Maritime Department is used to analyze the cognitive and social referents in this complex cultural process.

Climate : From Regional Analysis to Stereotypes The climate's variability has been perceived as a risk only since about 15 years ago. Studying this variability is now a social demand. Such knowledge is part of a region's economic infrastructure. Climate is part of the "lived-in-space" . As illustrated by the example of Irish farming and the 1845 famine, a systemic approach can be used to place historical, social, economic and climatic constraints on the same conceptual level. But the climate is also a renewable natural resource. By interpreting it, writers and film directors have helped create an image, a regional climatic myth, which advertizing has sometimes made into a sterotype.

Soldiers Outside in Wartime By analyzing WW I veterans' correspondence and logbooks, we grasp the importance of weather in daily life on the front. Soldiers suffered from bad weather and hunger, from the lack of sleep and fear. In pictures produced at that time, whether in new reels as well as illustrated magazines, this aspect has been deleted since, to take a picture of the weather on the battlefront would have amounted to depicting realistically the war and would have run counter to the optimistic, mollifying image drawn in official propaganda - whether during WW I or more recent conflicts.

Winter in Quebec : Reading about What It's Like Out Winter in Quebec is an event day in, day out. The newspapers, more than other media, testify to it, talk about it and mirror our feelings about and reactions to it. Through the press, we discover ourselves. It conveys the ambivalence of both our feelings and the climate. It is a calendar of the season's successive phases : preparation for winter, the phase of consumption, and the time to run away or wish winter away. The press proposes a reading of what the weather is like out.

Meteorology Will Never Abolish the Art of Interpreting Signs from the Sky. The Chariot of the Four Seasons in Narbonne What are the signs, sometimes ephemeral, that inhabitants of Narbonne, France, use to interpret the changing of the seasons ? They are perceived by the inhabitants and manifested in relation to their memory. They must be understood with discrimination. They are more obvious outside the city, for example in the Clape Mountains or the vineyards. There is a "national" meteorology, expressed in abstract terms ; but there is also a calendar related to local practices and personal feelings.