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William Jackson Humphreys
William Jackson Humphreys (February 3, 1862 – November 10, 1949) was an American physicist and atmospheric researcher. BiographyHumphreys was born on February 3, 1862, in Gap Mills, Virginia, to Jackson and Eliza Ann (née Eads) Humphreys.[1] He studied physics at Washington & Lee University in Virginia and later at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1897, studying under Henry Augustus Rowland.[2] He worked in the fields of spectroscopy, atmospheric physics and meteorology. In the field of spectroscopy he found the shift of spectral lines under pressure. In atmospheric physics he found a very good model for the stratosphere in 1909. He wrote numerous books, including a textbook titled Physics of the Air, first published in 1920 and considered a standard work of the time,[2] though it was last published in 1940.[citation needed] He also held some teaching positions at universities. He concluded that the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora was responsible for the subsequent cooling known as the Year Without a Summer.[3] From 1905 to 1935 he worked as a physicist for the U.S. Weather Bureau, predecessor of the National Weather Service.[2] In 1919, he served as president of the Philosophical Society of Washington.[4] He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1921.[5] In 1924 he was an Invited Speaker of the ICM in Toronto.[6] He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1929.[7] He died on November 10, 1949, in Washington, D.C.  Bibliography
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