Ik kwam net een stukje tegen over 'forensic meteorology', het gebruik van meteorologische gegevens bij moordonderzoeken.
Het is wel in het Engels, maar is wel aardig om te lezen over zo'n 'aparte' toepassing van het vakgebied.
Pieces of Evidence
by Sean Potter
The body of Kathleen Peterson was discovered at the bottom of a staircase in the early morning hours of December 9, 2001. Her husband, novelist Michael Peterson, maintained that he found her after she apparently fell and hit her head shortly before 3:00 a.m. His alibi? Peterson claimed that he had spent the three previous hours relaxing near the swimming pool outside the couple’s house wearing shorts and a T-shirt.
Initially, the death was ruled an accident. But prosecutors later decided it was a homicide and turned their focus on Peterson as the suspect. During the trial, the list of technical experts who testified on behalf of the prosecution included a forensic pathologist, a forensic serologist, a forensic chemist, a forensic DNA analyst, a forensic hair and fiber expert, and a forensic meteorologist.
“They called me to testify [about] the weather conditions in relation to the pool,” explained Bill Haggard. Haggard, a Certified Consulting Meteorologist (CCM), used data from several nearby locations to reconstruct the likely temperature at the time and place of the alleged murder. “There was no weather station at his house in Durham, North Carolina. There was no weather station within ten miles of his house. But I took the weather stations from Fayetteville and Rocky Mount and Raleigh-Durham and Greensboro and Danville, Virginia, and did an area map of hour-by-hour isotherms and then interpolated from that map what they would have been at his location.”
Haggard testified that the temperature between midnight and 2:00 a.m. dropped from 55 to 51 degrees, hardly shorts and T-shirt weather. Peterson ultimately was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
Although Haggard admits that his testimony “had a small part to play,” in the Peterson case, forensic meteorology has certainly gained prominence in the courts in recent years. According to Phillip Falconer, forensic meteorology plays an increasingly important role in the investigations of both civil and criminal cases where weather may have been a factor. Falconer, a CCM who runs his own consulting firm in Scotia, New York, has been practicing forensic meteorology for the past two decades.
“The process has been getting more sophisticated, and more attorneys are demanding that meteorologists get involved,” said Falconer. He also pointed out that this relatively specialized niche has not always been embraced as bona-fide professional practice. “It’s taken quite a while for the practice of forensic meteorology to make inroads with those in academia and the weather service.”
The Field Grows
The term “forensic” comes from the Latin word forensis, meaning “of the forum” to describe a place of discussion where Roman courts were held. Although the term “forensic meteorology” (or forensic climatology) has only been used for the past 30 years or so, the practice of applying weather and related knowledge to legal matters is nothing new (see By the Light of the Moon, page 31). In the March 1900 issue of Monthly Weather Review, Professor H.J. Cox, who at the time headed-up the U.S. Weather Bureau’s Chicago office, provided the following summary of his experiences in the courtroom:
"Since the opening of the present term of court, last fall, I have been in court thirty-three times to testify as to the condition of the weather at a particular time and as to what bearing it might have on the case at issue. In addition to these thirty-three cases many cases are settled out of court on the records of the weather department. Such cases are principally damage suits arising from the shipment of perishable goods. Every day we have from eight to ten telephone calls and numerous letters from commission merchants asking as to the weather conditions on particular dates and the claims are usually settled accordingly."
Although the National Weather Service (NWS) still provides forensic services to other government agencies involved in the investigation and litigation of weather-related accidents (such as the National Transportation Safety Board), weather service employees generally are prohibited from testifying in court, except in cases involving the federal government. The role of providing expert witness testimony for cases where weather may have been a factor is now filled by private-sector forensic meteorologists.
In the 20 years following the end of World War II, the number of private-sector weather businesses in the United States increased steadily. It was during this period of both economic and entrepreneurial growth that Walter Zeltmann, a former military forecaster, started one of the first successful forensic meteorology practices, International Weather Corporation of Brooklyn, New York.
Another notable pioneer in the field of forensic meteorology was Oscar Tenenbaum, who was the meteorologist-in-charge at the NWS Forecast Office in Boston from 1950 until 1972. After his years in public service, Tenenbaum, who held a Juris Doctor degree and was a member of both the Illinois and Massachusetts Bar Associations, provided forensic services to clients including homeowners whose homes were destroyed during the Great Northeast Blizzard of February 5–7, 1978.
Haggard, whose career in the private sector has involved work on more than 2,000 cases, retired from the federal government in 1975 and started Climatological Consulting Corporation the following year. “I came at the right time at the right place. Having been the director of the National Climatic Center—now the National Climatic Data Center—I realized the need for good, professional reconstruction in lawsuits and decided that that might be a fun thing to try.”
Practicing Forensic Meteorology
To help foster the growing field, the American Meteorological Society (AMS) sponsored a first-of-its-kind Conference on Forensic Meteorology in November 1976 that included presentations and panel discussions by members of both the meteorological and legal professions.
Even though the practice of meteorology does not require professional licensure as do some fields, many forensic meteorologists have earned the designation of CCM, which is awarded by the AMS to those in the field who have demonstrated a high level of technical competence, character, and professional experience. In addition to meeting a set of minimum qualifications, CCMs must pass a rigorous peer-reviewed process that includes recommendation for certification by three professional associates, a stringent written examination, and an oral review before a national board. The AMS’s Directory of Certified Consulting Meteorologists currently includes 117 individuals who list forensic meteorology as one of their specialties.
While many consulting meteorologists offer forensic services along with other specialties such as forecasting or applied research, the number who specialize solely in forensics is small. “There’s very few of us who do it full time,” said Falconer, who estimates that there are probably no more than two-dozen meteorologists nationwide who practice forensic meteorology on a full-time basis.
A successful forensic meteorologist needs to have a blend of technical expertise and the ability to present the facts of a case effectively, especially when serving as an expert witness. This calls for what Haggard referred to as jury presence. “You can’t be the world’s greatest meteorologist and a bumbling idiot. It makes sense to be a pretty good meteorologist and a person that the jury believes. Jury credibility is essential.”
Types of Cases
A forensic meteorologist might be called on to investigate a variety of cases. Some are straightforward and simply require the acquisition and interpretation of basic weather records in order to verify the conditions at a specific time and location. Others are relatively complex cases involving detailed analysis of data from several weather stations, site surveys, and comprehensive reports that reconstruct the meteorological conditions over a period of time.
Weather conditions often become an issue in slip-and-fall and other personal injury cases in which victims contend that snow or ice buildup was responsible. A driver involved in a motor vehicle accident may blame poor visibility or sun glint. A contractor being sued over construction delays might claim that heavy rainfall prevented completion of a project in a timely manner. Weather also often comes into play in cases involving aviation accidents—especially when microbursts, turbulence, wind shear, or aircraft icing is suspected.
Weather elements have also been called into question in several high-profile murder cases. In addition to the Peterson trial, a forensic meteorologist provided expert witness testimony at the trial of William Kennedy Smith, the nephew of Senator Edward Kennedy, who was accused in 1991 of raping a woman on a beach near the Kennedy family home in Palm Beach, Florida. During the investigation of the murder of six-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey, investigators looked at weather data to determine if snow had been on the ground, which might have preserved a perpetrator’s footprints. And during the much-publicized O.J. Simpson murder trial, testimony at one point focused on how the ambient temperature might have caused a container of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, found at the crime scene, to melt.
Forensic meteorologists also apply their skills outside the courtroom, providing data and analysis for the investigation of weather-related insurance claims. In 2003, weather-related catastrophes in the United States were responsible for more than $10 billion dollars of insured losses, according to reinsurance company Munich Re. The outbreak of 412 tornadoes that struck the Midwest and Tennessee Valley during the first 10 days of May 2003 resulted in more than $3 billion in losses.
“We have used the services of a forensic meteorology organization,” said Kip Diggs, spokesperson for State Farm Insurance. “The primary reason we would use that service would be to investigate a claim on a lightning strike.” An example that might warrant such an investigation, according to Diggs, would be someone claiming that lightning caused damage to an air conditioner unit when no other appliances in the house were affected or no other claims from that time and area were received.
Vaisala, Inc., which operates the National Lightning Detection Network and provides verification reports of cloud-to-ground lightning strikes for the insurance industry and others, states that approximately one-third of the lightning claims the company has verified since 1995 did not involve lightning on the date of loss.
The Weather Puzzle
Often, the meteorologist’s analysis of a particular case is hindered by the fact that the closest weather station to the site in question can be some distance away. “That’s when you have to dig into the many layers of data that are available to the forensic meteorologist,” Falconer said. He credits the NWS modernization program during the 1990s with increasing the value of the forensic meteorologist as someone who knows the capabilities of new equipment and where to find ancillary information regarding a particular case.
In addition to hourly observations taken at airports, an investigation may require the use of radar and satellite imagery, upper air information, lightning data, storm reports, and text products including forecasts, warnings, and special statements issued by the NWS. Also, investigators may use maximum and minimum temperature and 24-hour precipitation data that are collected daily by more than 11,000 volunteer observers as part of the weather service’s Cooperative Observer Program. Many forensic meteorologists rely on the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina, as the source for official weather data. Such data can be certified as true and as authentic copies of original records, making them more easily admissible as evidence in court. Unofficial data, such as observations taken by instruments that are part of state or privately owned networks of weather stations, are increasingly being used to help fill in the gaps in the official data and paint a clearer picture of what the weather was like at the time and place in question.
“You turn over every stone and see what’s under it,” said Haggard. “You use everything you can get.” Ideally, the meteorologist and attorney will work together as a part of a team with the attorney providing the weather expert with additional information, such as accident reports, eyewitness statements, and deposition transcripts, to aid in the reconstruction.
Regardless of the source of the data, it is the job of the forensic meteorologist to piece together as many elements of the weather puzzle as possible and determine what actually happened to a reasonable degree of certainty.
“The reason why forensic meteorologists are so important to attorneys in a litigation contest is that you cannot really accept the anecdotal evidence of what the weather was like on a particular date and location,” said Roger Haerr, a partner in the real estate litigation group of Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps LLP of San Diego. “Forensic meteorologists can really make the difference between winning and losing to the extent that the case is dependent on some influence of the weather.”
An Expert Witness
Although most legal cases that require the involvement of a forensic meteorologist never make it to the trial stage, experienced forensic meteorologists learn to become familiar with the legal processes that a case might undergo, from the discovery period to depositions to court trial. “If you do this long enough, you become sensitive to the legal issues,” said Falconer, who has given depositions or testified as an expert witness for about 200 cases over the past 20 years. Knowing the different obligations that a plaintiff’s attorney and a defense attorney have is important, he said. It is also important that a meteorologist who testifies in a deposition or trial remain objective and unbiased in their opinion. “You’re not an advocate,” cautioned Haggard. Falconer agreed, adding, “If you’re conceived of as a hired gun who will say anything to get paid, you’re in trouble.”
Knowing how to act under cross-examination is equally important. Haggard recalled the scrutiny his testimony faced while on the witness stand during the Peterson murder trial. “The final question of the defense attorneys was, ‘there wasn’t a weather station within ten miles of this location was there, Mr. Haggard?’ And, of course, the answer was ‘no.’ But we had already explained that by taking all of the stations around and finding out what the gradients were of the temperature, you could reconstruct what the temperature most probably was.”
In an increasingly litigious society that is so dependent on the weather, the demand for forensic meteorologists and the services they provide will only continue to grow, especially as data become more numerous and the techniques used to analyze them more sophisticated. If the old saying that the person who acts as his own lawyer has a fool for a client is true, perhaps the same could be said of the lawyer who acts as his own meteorologist.
SEAN POTTER is a Certified Consulting Meteorologist who lives and works in the Washington, D.C., area.
Bron: Weatherwise Magazine, http://www.weather-wise.org
Het is wel in het Engels, maar is wel aardig om te lezen over zo'n 'aparte' toepassing van het vakgebied.
Pieces of Evidence
by Sean Potter
The body of Kathleen Peterson was discovered at the bottom of a staircase in the early morning hours of December 9, 2001. Her husband, novelist Michael Peterson, maintained that he found her after she apparently fell and hit her head shortly before 3:00 a.m. His alibi? Peterson claimed that he had spent the three previous hours relaxing near the swimming pool outside the couple’s house wearing shorts and a T-shirt.
Initially, the death was ruled an accident. But prosecutors later decided it was a homicide and turned their focus on Peterson as the suspect. During the trial, the list of technical experts who testified on behalf of the prosecution included a forensic pathologist, a forensic serologist, a forensic chemist, a forensic DNA analyst, a forensic hair and fiber expert, and a forensic meteorologist.
“They called me to testify [about] the weather conditions in relation to the pool,” explained Bill Haggard. Haggard, a Certified Consulting Meteorologist (CCM), used data from several nearby locations to reconstruct the likely temperature at the time and place of the alleged murder. “There was no weather station at his house in Durham, North Carolina. There was no weather station within ten miles of his house. But I took the weather stations from Fayetteville and Rocky Mount and Raleigh-Durham and Greensboro and Danville, Virginia, and did an area map of hour-by-hour isotherms and then interpolated from that map what they would have been at his location.”
Haggard testified that the temperature between midnight and 2:00 a.m. dropped from 55 to 51 degrees, hardly shorts and T-shirt weather. Peterson ultimately was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
Although Haggard admits that his testimony “had a small part to play,” in the Peterson case, forensic meteorology has certainly gained prominence in the courts in recent years. According to Phillip Falconer, forensic meteorology plays an increasingly important role in the investigations of both civil and criminal cases where weather may have been a factor. Falconer, a CCM who runs his own consulting firm in Scotia, New York, has been practicing forensic meteorology for the past two decades.
“The process has been getting more sophisticated, and more attorneys are demanding that meteorologists get involved,” said Falconer. He also pointed out that this relatively specialized niche has not always been embraced as bona-fide professional practice. “It’s taken quite a while for the practice of forensic meteorology to make inroads with those in academia and the weather service.”
The Field Grows
The term “forensic” comes from the Latin word forensis, meaning “of the forum” to describe a place of discussion where Roman courts were held. Although the term “forensic meteorology” (or forensic climatology) has only been used for the past 30 years or so, the practice of applying weather and related knowledge to legal matters is nothing new (see By the Light of the Moon, page 31). In the March 1900 issue of Monthly Weather Review, Professor H.J. Cox, who at the time headed-up the U.S. Weather Bureau’s Chicago office, provided the following summary of his experiences in the courtroom:
"Since the opening of the present term of court, last fall, I have been in court thirty-three times to testify as to the condition of the weather at a particular time and as to what bearing it might have on the case at issue. In addition to these thirty-three cases many cases are settled out of court on the records of the weather department. Such cases are principally damage suits arising from the shipment of perishable goods. Every day we have from eight to ten telephone calls and numerous letters from commission merchants asking as to the weather conditions on particular dates and the claims are usually settled accordingly."
Although the National Weather Service (NWS) still provides forensic services to other government agencies involved in the investigation and litigation of weather-related accidents (such as the National Transportation Safety Board), weather service employees generally are prohibited from testifying in court, except in cases involving the federal government. The role of providing expert witness testimony for cases where weather may have been a factor is now filled by private-sector forensic meteorologists.
In the 20 years following the end of World War II, the number of private-sector weather businesses in the United States increased steadily. It was during this period of both economic and entrepreneurial growth that Walter Zeltmann, a former military forecaster, started one of the first successful forensic meteorology practices, International Weather Corporation of Brooklyn, New York.
Another notable pioneer in the field of forensic meteorology was Oscar Tenenbaum, who was the meteorologist-in-charge at the NWS Forecast Office in Boston from 1950 until 1972. After his years in public service, Tenenbaum, who held a Juris Doctor degree and was a member of both the Illinois and Massachusetts Bar Associations, provided forensic services to clients including homeowners whose homes were destroyed during the Great Northeast Blizzard of February 5–7, 1978.
Haggard, whose career in the private sector has involved work on more than 2,000 cases, retired from the federal government in 1975 and started Climatological Consulting Corporation the following year. “I came at the right time at the right place. Having been the director of the National Climatic Center—now the National Climatic Data Center—I realized the need for good, professional reconstruction in lawsuits and decided that that might be a fun thing to try.”
Practicing Forensic Meteorology
To help foster the growing field, the American Meteorological Society (AMS) sponsored a first-of-its-kind Conference on Forensic Meteorology in November 1976 that included presentations and panel discussions by members of both the meteorological and legal professions.
Even though the practice of meteorology does not require professional licensure as do some fields, many forensic meteorologists have earned the designation of CCM, which is awarded by the AMS to those in the field who have demonstrated a high level of technical competence, character, and professional experience. In addition to meeting a set of minimum qualifications, CCMs must pass a rigorous peer-reviewed process that includes recommendation for certification by three professional associates, a stringent written examination, and an oral review before a national board. The AMS’s Directory of Certified Consulting Meteorologists currently includes 117 individuals who list forensic meteorology as one of their specialties.
While many consulting meteorologists offer forensic services along with other specialties such as forecasting or applied research, the number who specialize solely in forensics is small. “There’s very few of us who do it full time,” said Falconer, who estimates that there are probably no more than two-dozen meteorologists nationwide who practice forensic meteorology on a full-time basis.
A successful forensic meteorologist needs to have a blend of technical expertise and the ability to present the facts of a case effectively, especially when serving as an expert witness. This calls for what Haggard referred to as jury presence. “You can’t be the world’s greatest meteorologist and a bumbling idiot. It makes sense to be a pretty good meteorologist and a person that the jury believes. Jury credibility is essential.”
Types of Cases
A forensic meteorologist might be called on to investigate a variety of cases. Some are straightforward and simply require the acquisition and interpretation of basic weather records in order to verify the conditions at a specific time and location. Others are relatively complex cases involving detailed analysis of data from several weather stations, site surveys, and comprehensive reports that reconstruct the meteorological conditions over a period of time.
Weather conditions often become an issue in slip-and-fall and other personal injury cases in which victims contend that snow or ice buildup was responsible. A driver involved in a motor vehicle accident may blame poor visibility or sun glint. A contractor being sued over construction delays might claim that heavy rainfall prevented completion of a project in a timely manner. Weather also often comes into play in cases involving aviation accidents—especially when microbursts, turbulence, wind shear, or aircraft icing is suspected.
Weather elements have also been called into question in several high-profile murder cases. In addition to the Peterson trial, a forensic meteorologist provided expert witness testimony at the trial of William Kennedy Smith, the nephew of Senator Edward Kennedy, who was accused in 1991 of raping a woman on a beach near the Kennedy family home in Palm Beach, Florida. During the investigation of the murder of six-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey, investigators looked at weather data to determine if snow had been on the ground, which might have preserved a perpetrator’s footprints. And during the much-publicized O.J. Simpson murder trial, testimony at one point focused on how the ambient temperature might have caused a container of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, found at the crime scene, to melt.
Forensic meteorologists also apply their skills outside the courtroom, providing data and analysis for the investigation of weather-related insurance claims. In 2003, weather-related catastrophes in the United States were responsible for more than $10 billion dollars of insured losses, according to reinsurance company Munich Re. The outbreak of 412 tornadoes that struck the Midwest and Tennessee Valley during the first 10 days of May 2003 resulted in more than $3 billion in losses.
“We have used the services of a forensic meteorology organization,” said Kip Diggs, spokesperson for State Farm Insurance. “The primary reason we would use that service would be to investigate a claim on a lightning strike.” An example that might warrant such an investigation, according to Diggs, would be someone claiming that lightning caused damage to an air conditioner unit when no other appliances in the house were affected or no other claims from that time and area were received.
Vaisala, Inc., which operates the National Lightning Detection Network and provides verification reports of cloud-to-ground lightning strikes for the insurance industry and others, states that approximately one-third of the lightning claims the company has verified since 1995 did not involve lightning on the date of loss.
The Weather Puzzle
Often, the meteorologist’s analysis of a particular case is hindered by the fact that the closest weather station to the site in question can be some distance away. “That’s when you have to dig into the many layers of data that are available to the forensic meteorologist,” Falconer said. He credits the NWS modernization program during the 1990s with increasing the value of the forensic meteorologist as someone who knows the capabilities of new equipment and where to find ancillary information regarding a particular case.
In addition to hourly observations taken at airports, an investigation may require the use of radar and satellite imagery, upper air information, lightning data, storm reports, and text products including forecasts, warnings, and special statements issued by the NWS. Also, investigators may use maximum and minimum temperature and 24-hour precipitation data that are collected daily by more than 11,000 volunteer observers as part of the weather service’s Cooperative Observer Program. Many forensic meteorologists rely on the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina, as the source for official weather data. Such data can be certified as true and as authentic copies of original records, making them more easily admissible as evidence in court. Unofficial data, such as observations taken by instruments that are part of state or privately owned networks of weather stations, are increasingly being used to help fill in the gaps in the official data and paint a clearer picture of what the weather was like at the time and place in question.
“You turn over every stone and see what’s under it,” said Haggard. “You use everything you can get.” Ideally, the meteorologist and attorney will work together as a part of a team with the attorney providing the weather expert with additional information, such as accident reports, eyewitness statements, and deposition transcripts, to aid in the reconstruction.
Regardless of the source of the data, it is the job of the forensic meteorologist to piece together as many elements of the weather puzzle as possible and determine what actually happened to a reasonable degree of certainty.
“The reason why forensic meteorologists are so important to attorneys in a litigation contest is that you cannot really accept the anecdotal evidence of what the weather was like on a particular date and location,” said Roger Haerr, a partner in the real estate litigation group of Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps LLP of San Diego. “Forensic meteorologists can really make the difference between winning and losing to the extent that the case is dependent on some influence of the weather.”
An Expert Witness
Although most legal cases that require the involvement of a forensic meteorologist never make it to the trial stage, experienced forensic meteorologists learn to become familiar with the legal processes that a case might undergo, from the discovery period to depositions to court trial. “If you do this long enough, you become sensitive to the legal issues,” said Falconer, who has given depositions or testified as an expert witness for about 200 cases over the past 20 years. Knowing the different obligations that a plaintiff’s attorney and a defense attorney have is important, he said. It is also important that a meteorologist who testifies in a deposition or trial remain objective and unbiased in their opinion. “You’re not an advocate,” cautioned Haggard. Falconer agreed, adding, “If you’re conceived of as a hired gun who will say anything to get paid, you’re in trouble.”
Knowing how to act under cross-examination is equally important. Haggard recalled the scrutiny his testimony faced while on the witness stand during the Peterson murder trial. “The final question of the defense attorneys was, ‘there wasn’t a weather station within ten miles of this location was there, Mr. Haggard?’ And, of course, the answer was ‘no.’ But we had already explained that by taking all of the stations around and finding out what the gradients were of the temperature, you could reconstruct what the temperature most probably was.”
In an increasingly litigious society that is so dependent on the weather, the demand for forensic meteorologists and the services they provide will only continue to grow, especially as data become more numerous and the techniques used to analyze them more sophisticated. If the old saying that the person who acts as his own lawyer has a fool for a client is true, perhaps the same could be said of the lawyer who acts as his own meteorologist.
SEAN POTTER is a Certified Consulting Meteorologist who lives and works in the Washington, D.C., area.
Bron: Weatherwise Magazine, http://www.weather-wise.org
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