Chandler, T.J. 1928-2008 (Tony Chandler, Tony John Chandler)

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born November 7, 1928, in Leicester, England; died July 17, 2008. Geographer, climatologist, educator, and author. Chandler specialized in climate studies at the most localized level possible. His specialty was urban climate in general and the climate of the London, England, area in particular. Chandler carried out his research on temperature and humidity from neighborhood to neighborhood, hour by hour, day and night. He outfitted a heavy-duty sport-utility vehicle with recording instruments and drove from point to point on a map of his own design. Chandler convinced dozens of others, both professional and lay people, to maintain records from their stationary observation posts. The results of his ongoing micro-study, first published in The Climate of London (1965), offered an unprecedented amount of detail to researchers in a wide range of disciplines, from geography to town planning, meteorology to architecture. Chandler's findings were applied originally to research on air pollution and environmental protection in England, but later expanded into climate studies on an international scale. Chandler taught meteorology and geography at the University of London from 1952 until 1973 and at the University of Manchester thereafter. He was appointed visiting professor at King's College, London, in 1989. During the 1970s Chandler also chaired the British National Committee for Geography, presided over the Royal Meteorological Society, and served as a consultant to the British Atomic Weapons Research Establishment. He was a member of the Clean Air Council, the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, and the Standing Commission on Energy and the Environment, to name only a few of his professional affiliations. Chandler received the Back Prize of the Royal Geographical Society in 1963. He was the author of Modern Meteorology and Climatology: An Introduction (1972), which has gone through several revisions since its debut, and a children's book, The Air around Us (1967). Chandler also coedited The Climate of the British Isles (1976).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Times (London, England), September 29, 2008, p. 53.