ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on two significant application domains: weather science and census geography. A meaningful comparison of atmospheric cartography and census mapping requires recognition of salient differences rooted in strategies for collecting and processing data. Data that could have been used to make atmospheric and census maps remained unmapped for decades before anyone recognized that a map might reveal meaningful patterns. Some nineteenth-century statistical maps based on census enumerations were dasymetric maps. Weather science was similarly slow to recognize the map as an efficient tool for pattern recognition. A marked contrast between atmospheric cartography and census mapping developed in the latter part of the twentieth century, as meteorology and climatology became even more deeply map-immersed while census cartographers generally relied on traditional graphic displays, occasionally updated to recognize the increased use of color reproduction. Radar maps, on which echo intensity is measured in decibels, employ many more categories than conventional choropleth maps, thereby violating warnings against illogical multiple hues.
