Raymond ['Ray'] Stuart Bradley MCH (Making Climate History) Oral History Interview

Oral history interview with Raymond Stuart Bradley conducted by Sarah Dry on 21st July 2022 as part of the Making Climate History project. Time-stamped Summary [Track 1] Growing up in Ellesmere Port, Wirral, his home, family and school [I: 01:15] School achievements and plans to apply for university [I: 07:42] Interest in geography at school and other outdoor pursuits [I: 11:30] The geography course at Southampton, being taught by Roger Barry and Allen Perry, and then his move to the Colorado, USA, for Master’s study under Barry [I: 16:24] His interest in weather and climatology from school-days onwards [I: 23:36] First impressions and emotions of arriving in the USA and in Boulder, Colorado [I: 29:39] The culture of INSTAAR, Boulder, the people he met, studied with and studied under [I: 36:17] Undertaking his first serious fieldwork on Baffin Island under John Andrews [I: 42:28] His changing interests whilst at INSTAAR, from urban climate to precipitation histories in the Rockies to paleoclimates [I: 49:22] Meeting Murray Mitchill for the first time and his visit to the Smithsonian Institution, and elsewhere, gathering climatic data [I: 54:29] The challenges of homogenising climatic data, especially temperatures, and meeting Fritts, Diaz, Kelly for the first time [I: 1:03:25] The Tucson tree-ring meeting and the start of plans to seek funding to support the development of a worldwide data set [I: 1:10:42] The technologies of data storge, transfer, mapping and curation, including early computers [I: 1:18:22] Moving from Boulder to UMass, Amherst, and the award of his 1974 PhD [I: 1:23:20] [Track 2] His experience of interdisciplinary research cultures in the 1970s [II: 0:30] NSF funded fieldwork on the glacial deposits of Ellesmere Island with John England [II: 2:39] Conference visits to the University of East Anglia in the later 1970s [II: 6:15] Collaborative DOE-funded work on temperature records with Diaz, Kelly and Jones [II: 9:43] About the DOE funding arrangements, the geographical range and scope of this work on temperatures [II: 19:32] Conducting other fieldwork in the late-70/early-80s [II: 24:28] Relationship with DOE funder, the ‘operational’ nature of work and his involvement in GCOS [II: 28:54] A 1979/90 sabbatical visit to Cambridge, UK and the Scott Polar Research Institute [II: 36:46] His relationships and attitudes towards Nick Shackleton, Wally Broecker, his data technicians/analysts and his feelings of imposter syndrome [II: 40:06] 1980s visits to the USSR with Mike MacCracken and George Kukla [II: 48:41] His views of the Russian idea of paleoclimate analogues, Mikhail Budyko and Andrei Velichko [II: 54:28] Meeting Hubert Lamb and his attitudes towards Lamb’s work and influence; being interviewed for the CRU directorship [II: 57:30] Changing DOE funding priorities, towards modelling, climate change detection and others applications; how funding opportunities influenced the work he did [II: 1:01:27] Climategate, the hockey-stick, and working with Mike Mann [II: 1:13:16] Continued fieldwork, training students, witnessing climate change first-hand [II: 1:19:12] His attitudes towards the status and utility of the metric of global temperature [II: 1:22:57] General reflections on his career and his continuing, ongoing work [II: 1:27:13 ]