International Women's Day: The Trailblazers Who Shaped Forecasting And Climate Research

For centuries, meteorology was a field dominated by men. But from pioneering early climate experiments to launching satellites carrying radars into space, women have been shaping the science of weather and climate for decades, often without recognition or even permission.

Here are just a few of the trailblazers whose work changed the forecast forever.

Eunice Newton Foote (1819 - 188)

In 1856, Eunice Newton Foote conducted a simple but revolutionary experiment, placing glass tubes filled with different gases in the sun and monitoring the contents with thermometers. The tube filled with carbon dioxide heated up significantly, and also held onto that heat longer.

Her conclusion was groundbreaking: more carbon dioxide would lead to a warmer atmosphere.

Meteorologist Sara Tonks notes that Foote’s work came three years before the major scientific publication that is often credited with identifying carbon dioxide as a heat-trapping gas.

But Foote didn’t have university backing. She wasn’t operating inside elite scientific circles. She was a women’s suffragist conducting experiments largely on her own.

Her research was presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, by a man who failed to emphasize its importance. The official summary of the event didn’t even mention her findings.

Her paper was later published, sometimes next to her husband’s name, once mistakenly under it, then it largely vanished from public awareness.

“For the longest time she couldn’t be an inspiration to anybody because people didn’t know about her,” Tonks explains.

It wasn’t until recent years that historians rediscovered notes from her presentation. Today, Foote is finally recognized as an early pioneer of climate science.

“We could have known about the impacts of carbon dioxide on our atmosphere way sooner, because she said accurately, more carbon dioxide is going to mean a warmer atmosphere, years before anyone else figured it out,” says Tonks.

Joanne Simpson (1923 - 2010)

When Joanne Simpson pursued her PhD, a faculty advisor told her no woman ever had, or ever would, earn one in meteorology. She became the first.

Simpson went on to develop the first cloud model, explain the heat-engine nature of hurricanes and deepen the understanding of tropical atmospheric circulation, including the Hadley circulation.

But she didn’t just theorize. She chased data.

When she needed cloud observations in the tropics, the Office of Naval Research agreed to outfit an airplane with instruments. There was just one problem: her institute didn’t allow women to go on field trips.

The naval officer intervened. No Joanne, no airplane.

“Think of what a testament that is to her significance,” adds meteorologist Caitlin Kaiser.

Simpson later became chief scientist for meteorology at NASA and proposed what became the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM). The satellite carried the first space-based rain radar, transforming how scientists measure tropical rainfall and improving hurricane forecasting to this day.

And as Kaiser notes, Simpson proved something else: that a woman could succeed at the highest levels of science while also balancing family life.

June Bacon-Bercey (1928 - 2019)

As a teenager, Bacon-Bercey saw the cover of Time magazine after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. The towering mushroom cloud of nuclear particles captivated her. She wanted to not only understand it, but help educate others about the science behind it.

She went on to become the first African American woman to earn a degree in meteorology and one of the first women to work at the U.S. Weather Bureau, now known as the National Weather Service.

During the Cold War, she played a role in nuclear testing research. But she realized something important: science only matters if people understand it.

So she became a journalist.

In 1971, she worked as a science reporter at WGR in Buffalo, New York, practicing weather presentations day and night, just in case she ever got the chance to become an on-air meteorologist.

That chance came unexpectedly.

“The chief meteorologist one day tries to rob a bank with a fake gun, and so he is arrested and doesn’t show up for work the next day,” meteorologist Jennifer Gray recalls.

June stepped up, becoming the first African American woman television meteorologist in the United States.

A Forecast For The Future

These women worked with glass tubes, propeller planes, satellites and television cameras. They faced every obstacle thrown at them, and yet, they persisted.

Without them, modern meteorology would look very different.

As each of our weather.com meteorologists reflected: Without these key women who paved the way, the women working in meteorology today would not be where we are now.