Alfred Wegener?

Question

Alfred Wegener was a geologist and a meteorologist. How does his skill in meteorology relate to his geological discoveries?

Answer 1

Alfred Wegener was also accomplished in Meteorology. Usually, meteorologists start out as geologists. Alfred Wegener needed knowledge of meteorology to come up with his pengae theory because, in geology, the whole purpose is to study rocks and minerals to determine the earth’s history and future.  But our earth survives from the sun, and the weather. In Meteorology, all the energy that reaches earth comes from the sun, and then it is distributed by different atmospheric processes. Without the rain, and the energy from the sun, the earth would eventually die, we depend on it to grow our crops, this is why it is important to know and understand the weather. Alfred Wagner needed knowledge of meteorology so he could look at past and current records on the atmospheric changes in order to scientifically back up his Pangaea theory, without this knowledge, he would have no way to know what atmospheric changes occurred that could have caused Pangaea breaking into pieces.

Answer 2

His most influencial work, which was incisive, clever, evidence-based stuff, was his proposal of continental drift.  That idea wasn't new.  The novelty lay in the diverse lines of evidence he pulled together demonstrating this drift happened.  Perhaps because he was German, English-speaking scientists failed to engage with the evidence Wegener actually cited, and failed to take his work as seriously as it deserved.  He didn't get everything right.  However, among other things, he had astronomical measurements conducted over decades, and these showed that observatories were no longer in precisely the same position relative to particular stars.  An observatory in New England had apparently moved somewhat further away from Europe through the years.

With regards to your specific question, none of his evidence had much to do with meteology.

There was some intriguing evidence that he may have missed, as far as I'm aware, although it's really geological again.  Rocks of particular ages from places now on or near the equator preserve indications of ancient ice caps.  This seemed puzzling without continental drift as, on the face of it, these suggested some kind of ancient equatorial ice caps.  As the equator is typically warm to hot, such a situation is almost impossible to account for without continental drift.