CHICAGO — It’s been six months since WGN-TV’s beloved meteorologist Tom Skilling retired, but this week he’ll be back in the spotlight. He’s being honored for his decades of scientific excellence at the Adler Planetarium’s “Celestial Bash” on Saturday.
Skilling recently returned to the Adler Planetarium to reflect on how astronomy informed his meteorology over the years.
“I taught a meteorology course here for years,” Skilling said while strolling the Adler’s grounds on Chicago’s Museum Campus.
But, Skilling said, it was actually the scientists at Adler who ended up teaching him.
“I thank my lucky starts every time I’ve called here, that a facility like Adler is available to us here in Chicago. it’s pretty remarkable,” he said.
Over the years, during astronomical events like eclipses, meteor showers, or the rare appearance of the northern lights, Skilling has used astronomy to understand changes in meteorology.
“We in meteorology deal with the first ten or 12 miles, when you look up because it’s within that thin layer of the atmosphere that most of our weather takes place,” Skilling said. “Then I tell everybody the astronomers take over pretty much after that.”
Skilling spent his sterling 45-year career trying to explain the complexities of science to a mass audience. His folksy charm and scientific command made him a favorite of the layperson and the expert.
“There are so many fields of science, so many ways of understanding our world that if you don’t have someone to bring it to you and explain, oh my God, it’s exciting and wonderful what might seem like a daunting complex thing, but you bring it down it down to Earth and suddenly you’re like ‘oh I get it,’ and I’m interested in it,” said Ken Walczak, the senior manager of the Adler’s Far Horizons Lab.
Walczak oversees the Alder’s hands-on space exploration program made up of students and volunteers who use high-altitude balloons to conduct space experiments, much like the weather balloons Skilling relied on in his early days reporting the weather.
“That’s where space starts, is right above our heads,” Walczak said. “We’ve got to go through some atmosphere before we ever get to space.”
From observing the tools of the laboratory, to admiring the antique astronomical instruments, Skilling says the Adler has been an invaluable resource for his weather reports – A job that required observing the satellites, and the stars.
It’s through these tools that astronomers have helped meteorologists and climatologists to better understand the changing planet.
“You know what’s been interesting is how the tools of astronomy, the sensors we’ve used to peer out into our universe have been turned toward earth to give us a better view of our home planet,” Skilling said. “The results have been incredibly important as we tackle issues like climate change and resource allocation, and the availability of water.”
The Adler Planetarium was founded by Sears executive Max Adler in 1930. It was the first planetarium in the western hemisphere. Its mission is to educate the public about the worlds beyond our own.
“Planetaria started as physical gear-based mechanisms that you would look at,” said Dr. Michelle B. Larson, president and CEO of the Alder. “The Moon goes around the Earth like this, and the Moon goes around the Sun like this.
“In the digital age, or before the digital age, we realized we could get more people gathered around an understanding of how things move if we projected that motion up into a big room.”
The” big room” at the Adler is the Grainer Sky Theatre, where a state-of-the art projection system shows the universe in motion on a domed floor-to-ceiling screen.
“Science is really joyful, and Tom brings such a curiosity and a joyfulness for finding the answers to what might be going on,” Larson said.
Skilling will be honored for his decades of service to science and to Chicago at Adler’s upcoming Celestial Bash.
“To have another group of scientists look at you and say hey what you did in the 45 years you were on television here mattered, this is one of those moments where you think, maybe it did make a difference – even if in a little tiny way,” Skilling said.
Skilling is using the moment to help raise money for the Adler, launching the “Tom Skilling Great Space Challenge,” which has a goal of raising $35,000 by Thursday Sept. 5.
You can donate here: adlerplanetarium.org