Barbara Bell
BornApril 1, 1922
Evanston, Illinois
DiedSeptember 25, 2017 (aged 95)
OccupationAstronomer

Barbara Bell (April 1, 1922 – September 25, 2017) was an American astronomer, affiliated with Harvard College Observatory, now the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, for her entire career. In addition to her work in astronomy, she contributed to the field of climate history, with studies of ancient Egypt.

Early life and education

Bell was born in Evanston, Illinois, the daughter of George Irving Bell Sr. and Hazel Seerley Bell.[1] She graduated from Radcliffe College in 1944, then earned a PhD from Harvard University in 1951.[2][3] Her dissertation, "A study of Doppler and damping effects in the solar atmosphere", was supervised by Donald Menzel,[4] and won the Caroline Wilby Prize in 1951.[5] Her younger brother George Irving Bell Jr. was a biophysicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory.[6]

Career

Bell was an astronomer affiliated with Harvard College Observatory and the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian for over fifty years, working mainly on sunspots[7][8] and other solar phenomena.[9][10] She served on various committees of the International Astronomical Union.[11]

Bell also researched and wrote on the climate history of ancient Egypt;[12][13] she is credited with being the first to explore climate change as a cause of famine and civil breakdown known as "The First Dark Age in Egypt", using records of the Nile's annual flood levels.[14][15]

Publications

Astronomy and solar phenomena

  • "Geomagnetism and the Emission-Line Corona" (1957, with Harold Glazer)[16]
  • "Sunspots and Geomagnetism" (1958)[7]
  • "Some Sunspot and Flare Statistics" (1958, with Harold Glazer)[17]
  • "The Doppler widths of solar absorption lines" (1959, with Alan Meltzer)[18]
  • "On the Magnetic Field Strengths of Sunspots" (1959)[19]
  • "On the Structure of the Sunspot Zone" (1960)[20]
  • "Major Flares and Geomagnetic Activity" (1961)[21]
  • "A long-term North-South asymmetry in the location of solar sources of great geomagnetic storms" (1962)[22]
  • "Solar radio bursts of spectral types II and IV: their relations to optical phenomena and to geomagnetic activity" (1963)[23]
  • "Lunar eclipses and the forecasting of solar minima" (1965, with John G. Wolbach)
  • "Dependence of the lunar modulation of geomagnetic activity on the celestial latitude of the Moon" (1966, with Richard J. Defouw)[24]
  • "Research Directed Toward the Observation and Interpretation of Solar Phenomena" (1968, with Howard L. DeMastus and Donald Menzel)[9]

Paleoclimatology

  • "Solar variation as an explanation of climate change" (1953)[25]
  • "The Oldest Records of the Nile Floods" (1970)[12]
  • "The Dark Ages in History. I. The First Dark Age in Egypt" (1971)[26]
  • "Climate and the History of Egypt: The Middle Kingdom" (1975)[13]
  • "Analysis of Viticultural Data by Cumulative Deviations" (2014)[27]

Personal life and legacy

Bell died in 2017, aged 95 years.[2] The Barbara Bell Professor of Egyptology position at Harvard was named in her honor.

References

  1. ↑ "Hazel Bell, 94, Active in Voters' League". The Boston Globe. 1979-01-17. p. 16. Retrieved 2021-12-27 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. 1 2 Hirshfeld, Alan (2017-12-01). "Barbara Bell (1922–2017)". Bulletin of the AAS. 49 (1).
  3. ↑ "Barbara Bell" American Men & Women of Science : A Biographical Directory of Today's Leaders in Physical, Biological, and Related Sciences. 2013, v. 1, p588-588
  4. ↑ Bell, Barbara (1951). A study of Doppler and damping effects in the solar atmosphere. Published under AMC contract W19-122ac-17 for the establishment of a solar observatory at Sacramento Peak, New Mexico. Harvard University. Special report no. 35. Cambridge, Mass.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  5. ↑ "Conant Declares Inflation Threat to Education". The Boston Globe. 1951-06-20. p. 3. Retrieved 2021-12-26 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. ↑ Saxon, Wolfgang (2000-06-18). "George Irving Bell, 73, Leader In Studies of Human Genome". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-12-27.
  7. 1 2 Bell, Barbara (1958). "Sunspots and geomagnetism". Smithsonian Contributions to Astrophysics. 2 (8): 161–179. Bibcode:1958SCoA....2..161B. doi:10.5479/si.00810231.2-8.161. ISSN 0081-0231.
  8. ↑ "16-year Study of Sunspots Evaluated". The Wichita Eagle. 1959-06-04. p. 39. Retrieved 2021-12-27 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. 1 2 Bell, Barbara; DeMastus, Howard L.; Menzel, Donald Howard (1968). Research Directed Toward the Observation and Interpretation of Solar Phenomena. Harvard University, Solar Department of Harvard College Observatory.
  10. ↑ "Sun Energy Changes Brought Ice Ages". Tampa Bay Times. 1952-05-25. p. 39. Retrieved 2021-12-27 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. ↑ "International Astronomical Union | IAU". International Astronomical Union. Retrieved 2021-12-26.
  12. 1 2 Bell, Barbara (1970). "The Oldest Records of the Nile Floods". The Geographical Journal. 136 (4): 569–573. doi:10.2307/1796184. ISSN 0016-7398. JSTOR 1796184.
  13. 1 2 Bell, Barbara (1975-07-01). "Climate and the History of Egypt: The Middle Kingdom". American Journal of Archaeology. 79 (3): 223–269. doi:10.2307/503481. ISSN 0002-9114. JSTOR 503481. S2CID 192999731.
  14. ↑ Smith, Laurence C. (2020-04-21). Rivers of Power: How a Natural Force Raised Kingdoms, Destroyed Civilizations, and Shapes Our World. Little, Brown. ISBN 978-0-316-41198-1.
  15. ↑ Thurston, Harry (2012-12-18). Secrets of the Sands: The Revelations of Egypt. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1-61145-848-0.
  16. ↑ Bell, Barbara; Glazer, Harold (1957). "Geomagnetism and the emission-line corona, 1950-1953". Smithsonian Contributions to Astrophysics. 2 (5): 51–107. Bibcode:1957SCoA....2...51B. doi:10.5479/si.00810231.2-5.51. ISSN 0081-0231.
  17. ↑ Bell, Barbara; Glazer, Harold G. (1958). "Some sunspot and flare statistics". Smithsonian Contributions to Astrophysics. 3 (4): 25–38. doi:10.5479/si.00810231.3-4.25. ISSN 0081-0231.
  18. ↑ Bell, Barbara; Meltzer, Alan (1959). "The Doppler widths of solar absorption lines". Smithsonian Contributions to Astrophysics. 3 (5): 39–46. Bibcode:1959SCoA....3...39B. doi:10.5479/si.00810231.3-5.39. ISSN 0081-0231.
  19. ↑ Bell, Barbara (1959). "On the Magnetic Field Strengths of Sunspots". Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. 71 (419): 165–167. Bibcode:1959PASP...71..165B. doi:10.1086/127355. ISSN 0004-6280. JSTOR 40676878. S2CID 120834649.
  20. ↑ Bell, Barbara (1960). "On the structure of the sunspot zone". Smithsonian Contributions to Astrophysics. 5 (3): 17–28. Bibcode:1960SCoA....5...17B. doi:10.5479/si.00810231.5-3.17. ISSN 0081-0231.
  21. ↑ Bell, Barbara (1961). "Major flares and geomagnetic activity". Smithsonian Contributions to Astrophysics. 5 (7): 69–83. Bibcode:1961SCoA....5...69B. doi:10.5479/si.00810231.5-7.69. ISSN 0081-0231.
  22. ↑ Bell, Barbara (1961). "A North-South Asymmetry in Location of Solar Sources of Great Geomagnetic Storms". The Astronomical Journal. 66: 38. Bibcode:1961AJ.....66Q..38B. doi:10.1086/108483. ISSN 0004-6256.
  23. ↑ Bell, Barbara (1963). "Solar radio bursts of spectral types II and IV: their relations to optical phenomena and to geomagnetic activity". Smithsonian Contributions to Astrophysics. 5 (15): 239–257. Bibcode:1963SCoA....5..239B. doi:10.5479/si.00810231.5-15.239. ISSN 0081-0231.
  24. ↑ Bell, Barbara; Defouw, Richard J. (1966-02-01). "Dependence of the lunar modulation of geomagnetic activity on the celestial latitude of the Moon". Journal of Geophysical Research. 71 (3): 951–957. Bibcode:1966JGR....71..951B. doi:10.1029/jz071i003p00951. ISSN 0148-0227.
  25. ↑ Bell, Barbara (1953-12-31), "8. Solar Variation as an Explanation of Climate Change", Climatic Change, Harvard University Press, pp. 123–136, doi:10.4159/harvard.9780674367166.c8, ISBN 9780674367159, retrieved 2021-12-26
  26. ↑ Bell, Barbara. "The Dark Ages in History. I. The First Dark Age in Egypt" American Journal of Archaeology 75 (1971), pp. 1-26.
  27. ↑ Rotberg, Robert I.; Rabb, Theodore K.; Bell, Barbara (2014-07-14). ""Analysis of Viticultural Data by Cumulative Deviations"". Climate and History: Studies in Interdisciplinary History. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-1-4008-5410-3.
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