Sir Alec Westley Skempton was an English civil engineer and Professor of Soil Mechanics at Imperial College London. He is often referred to as one of the founding fathers of soil mechanics in the UK and around the world. Skempton established the soil mechanics course at Imperial College London and was one of the most important engineers of the 20th century.

The Jicamarca Radio Observatory is a research facility of the Geophysical Institute of Peru, located near the city of Lima, that has been conducting observations and studies of the equatorial ionosphere for more than 50 years. In these notes we focus to the period of its construction and roughly the first decade of its operation (1960–1974). We emphasize observational and instrumental developments that shaped the capabilities of one of the most powerful incoherent scatter radars in the world.

The Liverpool Tidal Institute's (LTI) 100th anniversary was in 2019, and it acquired a reputation using tide prediction machines (TPMs). We describe the principles of a TPM, how many were made and Doodson's method to determine harmonic constants from tidal data to predict the tides. Although only three TPMs were used at the LTI, Doodson oversaw the design and manufacture of several others. We show how the UK, and Doodson particularly, played a central role in this area of science.

A brief history of the development of the Leith atmosphere model (LAM) by Chuck Leith around 1960 is presented. It is argued that the LAM was the first model that could reasonably be considered a comprehensive atmospheric general circulation model. The LAM was notable in that it had a representation of the hydrological cycle including prognostic cloud fields. The LAM left almost no footprint on the journal literature, but LAM simulations were published in pioneering computer animations.

The ongoing sea level rise is a big concern in the context of present climatic change. The study of past sea level observations is of great importance in describing sea level variations. This work describes the rescue and analysis of a previously unrecognised 12-year record of sea level heights, measured at Trieste in the late 18th century. Besides having historical value, the data were found to be consistent, although undocumented technical issues limited the scientific conclusions.

The German Geophysical Society was founded in 1922 as the Deutsche Seismologische Vereinigung. One of the 24 founders of this society was Karl Friedrich Almstedt. Born in 1891 and deceased in 1964, Almstedt represents a generation of academics and scientists who grew up during the decline of the European empires, experiencing the devastations of the two World Wars and the cruelties of the Nazi era as well as the resurrection of academic and cultural life in post-war Germany.

A graphical record of a cruciform appearance in the night sky and possible lunar-halo display of 806 CE in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is philologically traced back to mid-ninth-century continental manuscripts, and a probable observational site is identified as around Sens in France. Possible lunar halos are examined by numerical ray tracing. Cruciform halos are shown to be faint and rare and thus notable. Halos from physically credible cloud ice crystals reproduce the manuscript renditions.

The Széchenyi István Geophysical Observatory, also known as the Nagycenk Geophysical Observatory (NCK), is the only measurement site in Hungary where atmospheric electricity (AE) measurements have been made continuously since 1961. Quasi-continuous records of electrical potential gradient (PG) and Schumann resonances (SRs) from NCK are among the longest time series of their kind in Europe. This paper commemorates the efforts of people who established and managed AE measurements at NCK.

This article argues that the configuration of the Pontus Euxinus (the Black Sea), as described in Ptolemy's Geography, can be satisfactorily explained as a result of fitting contradictory pieces of information together that were inherited from earlier geographers, under the assumption that his sources were similar to those that have come down to us. The method is based on comparison of Ptolemy's data with the other ancient sources, revealing conspicuous similarities and differences between them.

This paper reviews Michael Rycroft's career as part of his 80th birthday celebrations in terms of the social and structural changes in international science. His contributions to research, teaching, and management across solar–terrestrial and ionospheric physics, and atmospheric and space science are also discussed. The paper is based on primary sources combined with the recollections of colleagues.

The Pakistan Space Weather Centre (PSWC) was inaugurated on 20 August 2018, but its long history dates back to the 1950s. SUPARCO was established as the national space agency in 1961 and, along with other projects, started ionospheric and geomagnetic monitoring and research in the country. The milestones achieved in the discipline of space weather are mentioned that subsequently resulted in the establishment of PSWC. It is anticipated that PSWC will act as a Regional Warning Center in future.