Editorial: Three essays of remembrance on the life of Helmut Landsberg

EDITORIAL:THREE ESSAYS OF REMEMBRANCE ON THE LIFE OFHELMUTLANDSBERG It is with sadness that I solicited the following three reminiscences celebrating the life of Helmut Landsberg, who died suddenly in Geneva in December 1985. He was nearly 80, yet active as ever, attending a World Meteorological Organization meeting when death struck. From my vantage point, Helmut Landsberg has had considerable impact, both as an advocate for the scientific method and as a critic of those he perceived as insuffi- ciently empirical. But in all encounters, I personally profited from his insistence on empirical verification and his example as a cautious scientist. Although Landsberg was always the skeptic, he nonetheless kept sight of the social need to understand real world problems: urban heat islands, climatic stress on humans or the greenhouse effect are examples. Even in his later years I relied heavily on his judgment as a reviewer of historic climatology and other subjects for manuscripts submitted to Climatic Change. His reviews were skilful, and sometimes sharp, but always fair. In fact, one appears later on in this issue. It is a fitting tribute to Helmut Landsberg that three eminent scholars, each a climato- logist with broad-ranging interests and achievements, have honored him with short essays. Indeed, it is appropriate that Hermann Flohn, J. Murray Mitchell and Hubert Lamb would write on the life of Helmut Landsberg, since all three are officially 'retired', yet they remain highly visible and active interdisciplinary climatologists. It is always valuable to hear their views, but given...