Robinson cup anemometer
Anemómetro de cazoletas de Robinson
- Date
- 1846 · confidence high
- Place
- Armagh, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom
- Credited to
- John Thomas Romney Robinson
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
What it is
Four hollow hemispheres mounted crosswise on a vertical axis that spin when the wind blows, with rotation speed proportional to wind speed. It became the standard anemometer of weather stations.
Robinson believed the cups turned at one third of the wind speed, a factor that proved wrong (Patterson, 1926, found about 2.5); the calibration was corrected decades later.
What it led to
- standard wind measurement in observatories and stations
- three-cup anemometers with better calibration
- long-term wind data series for wind power