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Title: The new air world
The science of meteorology simplified
Author: Willis L. Moore
Release date: January 15, 2025 [eBook #75114]
Language: English
Original publication: Boston: Little, Brown, and company, 1922
Credits: deaurider, John Campbell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
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THE NEW AIR WORLD
[Illustration: FIG. 4.—INSTRUMENT SHELTER. Frontispiece.
(_Page 66_)]
THE
NEW AIR WORLD
_The Science of Meteorology
Simplified_
BY
WILLIS LUTHER MOORE, SC.D., LL.D.
PROFESSOR METEOROLOGY GEORGE WASHINGTON
UNIVERSITY, EIGHTEEN YEARS CHIEF
UNITED STATES WEATHER BUREAU
[Illustration: (colophon)]
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1922
_Copyright, 1922_,
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
_All rights reserved_
Published October, 1922
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
TO
A FRIEND OF MANY AND PLEASANT YEARS
A BELOVED TEACHER AND A
GREAT CHEMIST
DR. CHARLES E. MUNROE, PH.D.
INTRODUCTION
The author’s “Descriptive Meteorology” (Appleton, 1914) is designed
for the teaching of those who intend to make Meteorology a
profession. This book is planned for the reading of those who desire
to know something of the wonders of the New Air World into which man
is just now entering, for those who desire to become weatherwise and
make forecasts for themselves, and to apply their knowledge to their
business, their health, and their happiness; and for the reading of
the more advanced pupils of the public schools.
So far as possible technical terms are avoided and an effort made to
tell a simple story that will awaken curiosity and lead the reader
to wish to know more and more of the mysteries of the atmosphere, of
which practically nothing was known at the time of the landing of
the Pilgrims, Torricelli not having discovered the barometer until
twenty-three years later. It will be made plain how atmospheric
air was formed, how long it will remain, whither it will go, how it
is heated, cooled, and lighted; where and how storms, cold waves,
clouds, frosts, and fair-weather conditions originate and how move;
how the cyclone, the tornado, and the thunderstorm may be recognized
on the Daily Weather Map of the Government and their future
activities forecast; how a fund of simple yet wonderful information
that will be of inestimable value may be acquired by any intelligent
person.
The author acknowledges courtesies extended to him by Prof. Charles
F. Marvin, present chief of the Weather Bureau, and by R. H.
Weightman, chief clerk of the Bureau, in the matter of securing
several important illustrations; and like favors extended to him by
D. Appleton and Company, John Wiley & Sons, and the Taylor Instrument
Company, of Rochester, N. Y.
W. L. M.
AUGUST, 1922
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTION vii
I ATMOSPHERES OF THE EARTH, THE SUN, AND THE PLANETS 1
II A SYNOPTIC PICTURE OF THE AIR 7
III EXPLORATIONS OF THE ATMOSPHERE 18
IV EARTH’S FOUR ATMOSPHERES 29
V LIGHT, HEAT, AND TEMPERATURE 48
VI THE ADVANTAGE OF TAKING WEATHER OBSERVATIONS AND
APPLYING THEM TO ONE’S PERSONAL NEEDS 64
VII FROST 85
VIII WIND AND PRESSURE OF THE GLOBE 98
IX HOW TO FORECAST FROM THE DAILY WEATHER MAP 112
X CLIMATE 161
XI HOW CLIMATE IS MODIFIED AND CONTROLLED 188
XII CIVILIZATION FOLLOWS THE STORM TRACKS 213
XIII HAS OUR CLIMATE CHANGED? 225
XIV CLIMATES FOR HEALTH AND PLEASURE 245
XV CONDENSATION 282
XVI DEVELOPMENT OF THE AMERICAN WEATHER SERVICE 291
INDEX 307
LIST OF FIGURES
Instrument Shelter (Figure 4) _Frontispiece_
FIGURE PAGE
1. Winter and Summer Vertical Temperature Gradients, in
degrees Centigrade and Fahrenheit 12
2. Showing light from lamp a passing into dust-free air
at _b_, and passing out at _c_ without illuminating
the interior 46
3. Standard Weather Bureau Kite 64
5. Comparison of the Thermometer Scales 67
6. Dry and Wet Bulb Thermometers 68
7. Mercurial Barometer 78
8. Continuous records of the temperature from 4 P.M.
to 9 A.M. 87
9. Continuous records of the temperature 5 feet and 35
feet above ground on a tower in a pear orchard 95
10. Average dates of last killing frost in Spring 96
11. Average dates of first killing frost in Fall 97
12. Trade wind circulation 99
13. Average surface winds and pressure of the globe 102
14. How winds would blow into a cyclone on a non-rotating
earth 108
15. Deflection of wind due to earth’s rotation 109
16. Annual, summer, and winter wind velocities with
altitude 110
17. Tornado Cloud 145
18. The St. Louis Tornado of May 27, 1896, Shot a Pine
Scantling through the Iron Side of the Eads Bridge 147
19. The St. Louis Tornado of May 27, 1896, Shot a Shovel
Six Inches into the Body of a Tree 147
20. The St. Louis Tornado Drove Straws One half Inch
into Wood 149
21. Equinoxes, March 21 and September 22 163
22. Summer Solstice, June 21 164
23. Winter Solstice, December 21 164
24. Winter and Summer Solstices, and the Equinoxes 165
25. As angle of incidence decreases from 90° to 10° the
heat received on upper end of blocks is spread
over greater area at bottom, and its temperature
diminished 165
26. Altitude attained by Sun at midday and length of its
track above the horizon at the Summer and Winter
Solstices and at the two Equinoxes 167
27. Summer day and Summer night temperatures in the same
narrow valley 204
28. Average Monthly Temperature and Rainfall of Typical
Places in North America 207
29. Average Monthly Temperature and Rainfall of Typical
Places in the Old World 208
30. Changes in Climate in California during the Christian
Era 237
31. Snow Crystals 286
LIST OF CHARTS
CHART PAGE
1. High and Low Centers of Action and Prevailing Winds
of the Globe for July 99
2. High and Low Centers of Action and Prevailing Winds
of the Globe for January 100
3. Winter Storm, December 15, 1893, 8 A.M. 114
4. Winter Storm, December 15, 1893, 8 P.M. 116
5. Winter Storm, December 16, 1893, 8 A.M. 118
6. Cold Wave Zones, March to November. Amount of Fall
and Verifying Limit 127
7. Cold Wave Zones, December, January, and February.
Amount of Fall and Verifying Limit 128
8. Lowest Temperatures in the United States, 1871-1913 129
9. Number of Cold Waves, 1904-1914, Inclusive 130
10. Storm Tracks for August for Ten Years 132
11. Storm Tracks for February for Ten Years 134
12. Average Maximum Temperature for July 195
13. Ocean Currents 196
14. Mean Annual Isotherms 200
15. Normal Wind Direction and Velocity for January and
February 202
16. Normal Wind Direction and Velocity for July and
August 204
17. Map of Climatic Energy 221
18. Density of Population in the United States, 1910 222
THE NEW AIR WORLD
CHAPTER I
ATMOSPHERES OF THE EARTH, THE SUN, AND THE PLANETS
=How Atmospheres Are Formed.= Once there were no such things on the
earth as hills and mountains, singing brooks, roaring rivers and vast
oceans; and the delicately hued landscape, with its winding roads,
hedges, flowers, green fields, and golden grain, had not evolved from
the atmosphere. The earth had not yet cooled down to the condition of
a solid crust, everything that the eye now sees existed in the form
of invisible gases, or as clouds incandescent with white heat. Fiery
blasts swirled over the face of the earth. Storms a million times
more powerful than the most destructive West Indian hurricane of the
present day moved through the indescribably hot atmosphere, throwing
down not rain as we understand it, but liquid earth and metal, as
their rising clouds ascended and cooled. It is difficult for the
human mind to grasp the wonders of this.
Small planets cool quicker than large ones and sooner come to
the conditions of a crust and to a temperature suitable for the
development of the various forms of life.
=Atmosphere of the Sun.= To the unaided eye it appears as a smooth,
bright, quiescent sphere, but the telescope reveals millions of
agitations and hundreds of red flames that shoot outward to distances
of hundreds of thousands of miles. One can form no adequate picture
of the convulsions of the atmosphere of the sun. During eclipses,
when the intense glare of its center is obscured, hydrogen flames may
be seen darting outward for as much as a million miles.
=Lifeless Planets.= The larger a planet the longer is the time that
must elapse before the hot vapors of rock and metal, which largely
compose its early atmosphere, cool and congeal into a crust, leaving
as a residual an atmosphere of such heat, density, and composition as
to permit of the beginnings of the forms of life that have inhabited
the world. Before the sun can reach this condition, an indescribable
period will have elapsed, its light will have gone out, its heat
will have ceased to reach the earth and the other planets in
quantities sufficient to maintain life, the earth will have been dead
millions of years, and the sun itself will only receive heat and
light from the feeble rays of the stars that, unlike itself, have not
yet ceased to shine. But even then the sun ever must remain dead, for
there is no external source whence it may receive heat. No vegetation
can adorn it, no water flow upon its surface, neither can the foot of
any man press its soil.
Jupiter, and perhaps Neptune, Uranus, and Saturn, have hot
atmospheres still in violent agitation,—molten surfaces composed
of all kinds of matter, from which bubble and boil off hot clouds
of vapor that surge about in huge eddies or cyclonic storms, and
that here and there are shot outward in tongues of fire. The earth
millions of years ago had a similar atmosphere. But when the heat
energy of these vaporous planets wanes, and they cool down, as the
earth did many years ago, the simplest forms of life cannot be
evolved upon them, for they are too far away from the sun to receive
life-giving heat. Mars receives less than half the intensity of the
solar rays that come to the earth, Jupiter only 0.037, Saturn 0.011,
Uranus 0.003, and Neptune 0.001.
In due time—some hundreds of millions of years—the cooling of the
sun will leave the earth to freeze and all life to become extinct,
unless, perchance, the oxygen of the air is so far absorbed by its
rocks, or filtered away into space, as to destroy life before that
time. No matter what may be the achievements of the human mind, what
wonderful civilizations may be developed, what powerful empires
created, or what wonderful secrets of creation discovered, it seems
certain that these all will pass away, and finally the surface of
the earth be as if man never lived. The dust of ages will wipe out
and obliterate every trace and vestige of the operations of life.
Silence, cold, and darkness will then reign supreme. But the time of
this is indescribably far off in the future, and man will have ample
opportunity to develop to the highest mental and spiritual estates of
which he has inherent possibilities.
The moon already is dead. If it is formed of matter abandoned by the
earth, as we believe, it once must have had an atmosphere, a portion
of which was absorbed by its rocks as it cooled, and the remainder
lost as the result of the low power of attraction of so small a
body, which is insufficient to prevent the darting molecules of the
gases of its air from shooting off into space. The absence of an
atmospheric covering allows the heat from the sun to escape almost
as rapidly as it is received; and the long nights of the moon (each
as long as fourteen of our days) during which the sun’s rays are
entirely cut off, permit the temperature of the dark side to fall to
something like -400° F.
=How Atmospheres Are Maintained and How Lost.= The processes of
nature are always adding to the various gases of the atmosphere in
some ways, and transforming or taking from them in other ways. On the
earth the loss and the gain are so nearly equal as to maintain at
present a nearly constant condition. Marked changes have taken place,
however, in long geologic periods. Our early atmosphere probably
contained large quantities of carbon dioxide which were absorbed by
the rank vegetable growth that now forms the coal beds of the earth,
and the slowly cooling rocks that constitute the crust took in large
quantities of oxygen; in fact, nearly one half of the weight of the
crust of the earth is composed of the latter element.
In consequence it may be said that our present atmosphere is what
remained after the earth had absorbed its gases nearly to depletion,
and after the lighter gases, like hydrogen and helium, which seem to
have too great molecular velocity to be imprisoned by the earth’s
attraction of gravitation, had been lost in space. Gases that cannot
be held by the moon may be imprisoned by the earth and those that can
escape from the earth may be held by the larger planets.
=Height of the Earth’s Atmosphere.= Exact computation has shown that
if the air were the same density at all elevations, which it is not,
it would extend upward a distance of only five miles. From laws that
are well understood it is known that at a height of thirty miles
the atmosphere is only about one hundredth as dense as it is at the
surface of the earth, and that at fifty miles it is too light to
manifest a measurable pressure. The oxygen ceases at about thirty
miles and the nitrogen at about fifty miles, the water vapor being
restricted below the five-mile level. The appearance of meteors,
which are rendered luminous by rushing into the earth’s atmosphere,
and whose altitudes have been determined by simultaneous observations
at several stations, reveals the presence of hydrogen and helium at a
height of nearly two hundred miles.
CHAPTER II
A SYNOPTIC PICTURE OF THE AIR
How much do you know of the great aërial ocean on the bottom of which
you live and in which human beings are just beginning to fly? Its
variations of heat, cold, sunshine, cloud, and tempest materially
affect not only the health and happiness of man but his commercial
and industrial welfare, and yet few know more than little of the
wonders of the life-giving medium that so intimately concerns them.
=At the Height of Two Hundred Miles.= Here is only the invisible,
the intangible ether which, while too tenuous to be detected or
measured by any appliances of man, is supposed to transmit the rays
of the sun. These rays, coming in the form of many different wave
lengths, and with widely differing velocities of vibration, produce
a multitude of phenomena as they are absorbed by or pass through
the air, or as they reach the surface of the earth. The longer and
slower waves are converted into heat, the shorter and more rapid ones
into light, and the minutest movements probably into electricity.
Oxygen and nitrogen, which form the greater part of the atmospheric
gases, absorb comparatively little of the solar rays, while water
vapor, which constitutes a little more than one per cent. of the
atmosphere and which remains close to the earth, absorbs large
quantities. From the fact that one half of the atmosphere, including
nearly all of its water vapor, lies below an elevation of three and
one half miles, it becomes evident that the greater part of the
absorption of the sun’s rays must take place in the lower strata. On
clear days the atmosphere absorbs nearly one half of the sun’s heat
rays; the remainder reaches the surface of the earth, warms it and
in turn is radiated back into the air,—with this difference: that
as earth radiation the wave motion of the rays is longer and slower
than it was when the rays entered our atmosphere as solar radiation.
In this slower form the rays are the more readily absorbed. The
atmosphere is thus warmed largely from the bottom upwards, which
accounts for the perpetual freezing temperatures of high mountain
peaks, although they are nearer the sun than are the bases from which
they rise.
=At the Height of One Hundred Miles.= The temperature at this
altitude must be that of outside space, probably 459° F.[1] below
zero. Air liquefies at 312° below, and therefore it cannot exist in
the gaseous state in a region having a lower temperature. When it
liquefies it has the color and general appearance of water, and about
the same specific gravity.
When a piece of steel and a lighted taper are brought together inside
of a vessel filled with liquid air, the dense supply of oxygen makes
combustion so rapid that the hard metal burns like tinder.
=At the Height of Fifty Miles.= There is enough air here to refract
light slightly, as at twilight, and to render luminous the meteors
that rush with fearful velocity against its widely scattered
molecules. At this distance from the earth there probably is no more
air than would be found under the receiver of the best air pump,
and, the reader will be surprised to learn, darkness is practically
complete, although the hour may be midday, for there are no dust
motes to scatter and diffuse and render visible the light rays of the
sun. (See Chapter III.)
=The Darkness of Outer Space.= It may be proven by taking an inclosed
volume of air, freeing it of dust motes, of which there are millions
per cubic centimeter, and then trying to illuminate it; it will
be found that no matter how powerful the light directed into it,
it remains wholly dark. When one looks upward on a clear day, he
apparently sees the whole universe illuminated; but in point of
fact only the thin stratum of the earth’s air in which he lives is
illuminated. Outer space is practically without temperature or light.
The rays of the sun do not become either light or heat or electricity
until they encounter the molecules of the air, or the invisible dust
motes, or the cloud particles near the earth and through interference
are transmuted from etheric vibrations into other forms of energy.
=The Bacteria of Disease and of Putrefaction.= These rapidly diminish
in number with elevation, and on the tops of the highest mountain
peaks practically none are found. Mid-ocean also shows but few.
=At the Height of Twenty-five Miles.= Air, light as it is, has still
sufficient density to obstruct the passage of the minutest wave
lengths of light, and here probably begins to be appreciable the
blue tint of the heavenly vault. At this short distance from the
earth there must be a deathlike stillness, for there is no medium
sufficiently dense to transmit sound. Two persons could not hear
each other speak, even if they could live in this rare atmosphere,
which they could not. Here is eternal peace and no apparent motion,
for storms and ascending and descending currents cease long before
this level is reached. The cold is intense and daylight but a feeble
illumination. There are no clouds.
=Isothermal Stratum Entered at the Height of Seven Miles.= We know
that the temperature decreases rapidly with ascent—about one degree
for each three hundred feet—until the top of the storm level is
reached, at about seven miles, when a most wonderful discovery is
made: the thermometer no longer falls as the aviator rises, or
as balloons float to great altitudes carrying self-registering
instruments. The temperature remains practically stationary, so far
as exploration has been made, which is to the height of over nineteen
miles. Major R. W. Schroeder, U. S. A., flew in an aëroplane to
36,000 feet and recorded a temperature of 69° below zero.
We have named this region above storms the _Isothermal_ stratum.
(See Figure 1.) Its temperature everywhere is about 70° below zero
and it changes only about six degrees between winter and summer. Of
course we must assume that ultimately the temperature shades away to
practically nothing as outer space is reached.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.—Winter and Summer Vertical Temperature
Gradients, in degrees Centigrade and Fahrenheit.]
Scientific and inventive genius is becoming so skillful in harnessing
the forces of nature to man’s desires that it is reasonable to
anticipate that within a quarter of a century or less human beings
will be nearly as numerous in the air as insects, they will remain
aloft longer, and sail to vastly greater distances and to higher
altitudes. In time dirigible ships may sail for days and possibly for
weeks in the pure air aloft, carrying millions of passengers.
=At a Height of One and One Half Miles.= There is little difference
in the temperatures of day and night, except that the coolest time of
the twenty-four hours is during daytime and not at night, as would be
most naturally supposed. This is important information to an aviator
or to the pilot of a balloon.
=At an Altitude of One Thousand Feet.= In free air at the hottest
time in midsummer’s heat, the air is found to be as much as fifteen
degrees lower than that at the ground. Almost within arm’s length
of the streets of great inland cities there is a cool and healthful
atmosphere when humanity is sweltering and dying from heat below.
Some youth who is reading this may develop the genius that will lift
up whole city blocks into this cool and healthful region. Open steel
work below, the first level at one or two thousand feet above the
hot streets, express elevators to carry passengers, and the climate
of the cool mountain air is accessible to those who now live in
discomfort at low populous centers. Man is just beginning to disport
himself in the hitherto trackless wilderness of the air. Certain
it is that the hanging gardens of Babylon will be outdone in the
Twentieth Century and the eyrie of the eagle left far below by those
who will live a part of their time in elevated structures having
bases resting upon the earth; or who will fly to great distances
aloft and remain at whatever altitude furnishes them the most
pleasant and beneficial conditions, and that they may thus remain not
only for days but for weeks without returning to the surface of the
earth.
Only during recent years have we realized how thin is the stratum of
air next to the earth which has sufficient heat and moisture for the
inception, growth, and maturity of animal and vegetable life. The
raising of the instrument shelter at the New York station of the U.
S. Weather Bureau from an elevation of one hundred and fifty feet
above the street to an altitude of three hundred feet has caused an
apparent lowering of the mean annual temperature of two and one half
degrees.
Air is so elastic and its density diminishes so rapidly with
elevation that nearly one half of the weight of the entire mass of
the atmosphere lies below the level of the top of Pike’s Peak, which
has a height of a little less than three miles above sea level. It
presses with a weight of about fifteen pounds per square inch of
surface, and its pressure is exerted in all directions, upward as
well as downward. An ordinary man sustains a pressure of over one
ton on each square foot of his surface, but as the air penetrates
all portions of his body and exercises a pressure outward as well as
inward he feels no inconvenience. If his body could be so tightly
sealed that no air could enter and if then the air of the interior
should be removed with a pump, his body instantly would be crushed to
a shapeless pulp.
A cubic foot of atmospheric air weighs one and one third ounces.
Water is 773 times, and mercury ten thousand times, as dense as
air. But air is a more ponderable substance than many suppose; an
ordinary lecture hall forty by fifty feet and thirty feet from
floor to ceiling contains two and one half tons of air at freezing
temperature. It would contain less at a higher temperature,
because heat expands its volume; it would contain more at a lower
temperature, because cold contracts its volume.
=Everything Evolved from the Air.= Air is so common that we seldom
stop to consider the magnitude of the force it exerts or the grandeur
wrought by this invisible architect of nature. In the great cycle
of world building—birth from the nebulæ, growth, maturity, decay,
disintegration, death, and then possibly back again to the nebulæ—the
atmosphere, be it light and tenuous as at present, or be it filled
with the hot vapors of earth and metal, is the vehicle and the medium
of the builder, transporting and transmuting, in mysterious ways and
to wondrous forms, the materials of planets. Its work as a builder
may be further illustrated by showing that the body of man itself
returns not to the earth earthy, as we have been taught, but largely
to the air whence it came. Decomposition is but the liberation of
the aëriform gases of which it is mainly composed; the residue is
but a handful that goes back to mother earth. Let us take the dried
corn plant; weigh it, then burn it in a closed vessel so that none
of the ashes can blow away. Continue the burning until the ashes are
perfectly white and it will be found that the weight of the ashes is
only about one twentieth of the weight of the great stalk, ear, and
foliage we began with. What has become of all the rest? The fire has
destroyed it, you say. No, we can destroy nothing. Remember that;
we can destroy nothing that the Creator has made, neither matter
nor force. The fire has simply changed the form of the plant; the
nineteen twentieths that have disappeared have gone back to the air
whence they came.
Thus we see that the body of man, the cereal and fruit that furnish
him food, the structure that gives him shelter, aye, the many things
that please the eye: the landscape, the beautiful flowers, the green
fields, the babbling brooks, even the rose blush on the maiden’s
cheek,[2]—really come from this wonderful fluid surrounding the
earth, and well may it be said that the queen of life rides upon the
crest of the wind.
CHAPTER III
EXPLORATION OF THE ATMOSPHERE
DISCOVERIES AS VALUABLE TO THE FUTURE AS THOSE MADE BY COLUMBUS
An entire new world is coming within the range of man’s vision. Its
possibilities for adding to the health and happiness of mankind are
almost limitless. The geographic poles have been conquered and the
jungles of Africa traversed; and deep borings have been made into the
bowels of the earth until heat has arrested further progress. The
further exploration of both regions is of the utmost importance to
the coming age. It is not at all visionary to assume that the heat of
the earth’s interior in near time will furnish the power necessary to
do the drudgery of mankind, give warmth and light to habitations, and
operate transportation systems; and the New World Above offers pure,
electrified, and highly stimulating air into which helium-inflated
dirigible balloons will sail, and in which they will remain not only
days but weeks or longer, with their multitudes of people.
While the use of kites and balloons in sending automatic
meteorological instruments far aloft has revealed more of the wonders
of this hitherto uncharted wilderness of cold and partial or total
darkness than the general public is aware of, only the outer fringes
of the mysterious regions above the clouds and the storms have been
penetrated.
When the manufacture of helium, a noncombustible gas almost as light
as hydrogen, becomes more general, as seems imminent in the United
States, the dirigible balloon may successfully compete with the
railroads in the carrying of long-distance passengers. The recent
loss of over forty lives in England by the collapse of the dirigible
ZR2 probably was largely if not entirely due to the explosion and
fire of the hydrogen gas with which the ship was inflated.
A decade ago, in a number of Chautauqua lectures, the writer
invariably was greeted with looks of incredulity when he prophesied
that within ten years travelers of the air would take breakfast at
the Waldorf-Astoria in New York and afternoon tea on the banks
of the Thames. And yet the ocean already has been crossed by an
aëroplane in continuous flight, and in the near future it is highly
probable that aërial navigation will be safer than travel by rail
or automobile. The hitherto inaccessible parts of the earth will
be sailed over and closely scrutinized, while travelers enjoy the
comforts that heretofore have been associated with Pullman service.
In 1862 the English meteorologist Glashier ascended in a balloon to
about the same height as that attained by Major R. W. Schroeder,
U. S. A., who achieved a more difficult feat when he flew in an
aëroplane to over 36,000 feet. And at Dayton, Ohio, celebrated as the
home of the Wright brothers, on September 28, 1921, Lieutenant John
A. Macready, U. S. A., reached the unprecedented height of 40,800
feet. These are the extreme altitudes to which human beings ever have
attained, but they are only the beginning of explorations into a vast
and largely unknown and extremely cold region,—one in which darkness
increases with elevation until at the outer limits of the atmosphere
no illumination whatever exists.
The high eastward wind and 69° below zero encountered by Schroeder
are conditions that already had been revealed by the work done
at the research station of the Weather Bureau, at Mount Weather,
Virginia, and at other stations in this country and in Europe, by
the sending up of instruments unaccompanied by observers. Under
the direction of the writer the Weather Bureau liberated numerous
small hydrogen gas balloons in the Rocky Mountain region, to which
were attached automatic instruments registering the temperature,
pressure, and the hygrometric conditions. As they came eastward
in the atmospheric drift that always prevails above the storms in
the middle latitudes they attained to great altitudes, one balloon
reaching 19.1 miles, the greatest altitude ever reached at that time
by the appliances of man. Ultimately the balloons would explode as
they expanded under the influence of decreasing air pressure and the
case of instruments would descend slowly under a parachute designed
to open at the right moment. The barometer traced a line on a paper
cylinder revolving by clock works, as did the thermometer. The
thermogram gave the temperature that corresponded with the varying
elevation shown by the tracing of the barogram.
In 1898, twelve hundred observations were made with kites by the
observers of the Weather Bureau at seventeen stations selected
by the writer, during the six warm months from May to October. It
was surprising to find the temperature often losing as much as
fifteen degrees with the first thousand feet ascent during middays
of extremely hot periods. The average decrease in temperature per
thousand feet elevation for all stations for all times, and at all
elevations up to 5280, was 4°.
For over five years kites were used nearly every day in the year at
Mount Weather to carry instruments aloft to heights ranging from
two to four and one half miles, and at times to keep the apparatus
up during all hours of the day, so that a comparison could be made
of the difference between day and night temperatures. There is but
little difference between midday and midnight at only a few thousand
feet above the earth.
Few are aware that the rectangular kite of the weather man was the
forerunner of the aëroplane of the aviator. In 1903, while directing
wireless experiments in the sending of messages at Roanoke Island,
North Carolina, the writer saw the Wright brothers, or their
representatives, lying flat upon the lower planes of what appeared
to be Weather Bureau kites and gliding in the air from the top of
the sand dunes. This was the beginning of real flight by man.
The ingenuity of the Wrights transformed the weather man’s kite,
strengthened it, took out the ends, hitched on a rudder, and when the
petrol engine had developed sufficient power with a given weight,
installed it, and flew.
In the future the meteorologist and the aviator will be closely
associated. With a sufficient number of weather observations made by
aviators simultaneously and well distributed over the United States
it will be possible to construct a daily weather map on some high
level—say the three-mile level—similar to the map now based upon
sea level. The pressure, temperature, wind direction, clouds, and
rainfall would be recorded and charted for the upper region clear
across the continent. Three miles is about halfway to the top of
cyclonic storms and probably in the region of greatest activity. More
accurate forecasts would be possible by the study of this additional
weather chart. This coöperation of the bird man and the weather man
in studying the geography of the new air world will mark an epoch in
meteorological science as far-reaching in its consequences as were
the discovery of the barometer by Torricelli and the uncovering of
the principles of the thermometer by Galileo, the former of which
was not known until more than twenty-three years after the landing
of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock. Thus swiftly does the mind of man
to-day explore the hidden recesses of nature’s mysteries, and with
each conquest carry itself to a higher realm of existence.
In the not distant future, more storm warnings may be issued by the
Weather Bureau for ships of the air than for those of the sea, for
the navigation of the air must play an increasing and important part
in the coming activities of the world. Science is becoming so skilled
in the harnessing of the forces of nature to man’s desires and in
the development of mechanical appliances, that it is reasonable to
anticipate the possibility that long-distance travel over land or
ocean ultimately will be almost entirely confined to the air.
As the result of the explorations of the atmosphere made by the
institution at Mount Weather there was ready for our fighting air men
at the front, immediately on our entry into the World War, a fund of
useful information concerning a region that but a short time before
was entirely uncharted. The instruments carried by the exploring
kites and balloons had keen scientific eyes and they recorded on
clock-timed cylinders what they saw. Thus did the air pilot know
much about the direction and the force of the wind that he would
encounter as he rose, the altitude where he would pass above clouds,
the degree of cold that he would encounter, etc. He was told that the
temperature would fall about one degree for each three hundred feet
of his ascent until he reached the top of the storm stratum at six
or seven miles, and that if he could reach that altitude he would
observe a most wonderful phenomenon: the temperature no longer would
fall with gain in altitude; he would enter a cold but an equally
heated stratum, without finding any temperatures lower than were
encountered upon entering the region, which is always about seventy
degrees below zero.
If the aërial explorer could stop his ship and keep it at an altitude
of about one and one half miles for twenty-four hours he would be
startled to find that the coolest time of the period was during the
daytime, not during the night, as he had expected to find it.
In the future the traveler in the upper reaches of the atmosphere
will carry oxygen and make the kind of air that he wishes to breathe,
and he will properly protect himself against the cold of his new
world, which he will find deficient in dust motes and doubtless
entirely wanting in the bacteria of putrefaction and of disease.
There will be no clouds to obscure his vision; no rain or snow. He
will not often ascend above the region where there are not some dust
motes to scatter and diffuse a part of the solar rays and give him at
least a partial illumination.
Few persons are familiar with the simple problems of the air which
have such important bearing on the distribution of man into realms
above those he has been accustomed to occupy. They do not know
that the northwest wind brings physical energy and mental buoyancy
because it has a downward component of motion that draws air from
above, where it is free of impurities, and where high electrification
has changed a considerable quantity of its oxygen into ozone, in
which condition it remains but a short time after reaching the
lower potential near the earth’s surface. More people die under the
influence of the south wind than under the influence of the north
wind, because the south winds hug the surface of the earth and become
laden with impurities and are lacking in electrical stimulation. When
inventive man becomes more familiar with the ocean on the bottom of
which he has heretofore lived, he will not wait for the north wind to
bring down to him the beneficial conditions that always exist higher
up; he will go after them and remain aloft as long as he desires to
do so.
The further development of the dirigible balloon and the aëroplane
are among the most important duties that the engineer of the future
owes to civilization; and the meteorologist must establish the
climatology of the vast untracked regions above the highest mountain
peaks, for here man will largely disport himself in the time to come.
The writer agrees with the opinion of Major William R. Blair,
formerly of his staff when he was the head of the U. S. Weather
Bureau, but since the beginning of the World War the chief
meteorological assistant of the Chief Signal Officer of the U. S.
Army when he says:
“With reference to air travel in the future: the present stage
of aircraft development seems to indicate that long non-stop
traffic, both freight and passenger, in the air will be by means
of lighter-than-air craft (balloons). These craft have much
larger carrying capacity than any airplanes now designed and
will travel across the continent over several prepared routes,
stopping only at important centers on these routes to discharge
and take up passengers and freight. It is believed that airplanes
(heavier-than-air craft) will ply between these important centers
and the outlying country about them, thus acting as feeders to
the main route, over which the monstrous dirigibles will operate.
Most transoceanic as well as transcontinental air traffic will
probably be carried on in these large dirigible balloons.”
Lieutenant Colonel Henry B. Hersey, who served through the World War
in the Aëronautical Service of the Signal Corps, U. S. A., and who
also was associated with the writer in the management of the Weather
Bureau, says:
“The fields of the dirigible and the air plane are separate and
there is no conflict between the two. For light loads, great
speed, and quick manœuvering, the airplane is supreme. For heavy
loads, long distance, ability to remain in the air for great
periods of time, the dirigible is the only air craft that can
fulfill the requirements. Dirigibles will soon be in use which
can start from Europe, sail over New York, and drop enough
poison gas to kill thousands and make practically the whole city
uninhabitable.”
CHAPTER IV
EARTH’S FOUR ATMOSPHERES
The earth has four important atmospheres and others of less
importance. The principal ones are oxygen, nitrogen, vapor of water,
and carbon dioxide, each comporting itself as it would do if the
others were not present. There is space between the molecules of
each gas, and therefore it is easily compressed. A doubling of its
pressure reduces its volume one half.
=Composition of Atmospheric Air.= It is difficult for the mind to
form a picture of the infinitely small molecules of the air. Let
us therefore use terms and comparisons that will the more directly
appeal to the human senses. First let us imagine each molecule
enlarged to the size of a small grain of sand. Then with the
molecules from one cubic inch of air transformed into grains of sand
we could build a roadway ten feet deep and one hundred feet wide
extending from New York to San Francisco. May one still further grasp
the idea of the atom, many of which are required to make up the
molecules? If so, the imagination has been stretched to its limits to
enable the human mind to comprehend some of the simplest facts with
regard to the wonderful fluid in which we live.
Sir William Thomson, afterwards Lord Kelvin, in endeavoring to give
relative values that would appeal to the imagination, said that if a
drop of water were enlarged to the size of the earth, the molecules
of which it is composed would be no larger than cricket balls, and
the smallest about the size of small peas.
More than a thousand years before the birth of Christ a great
Phœnician philosopher believed that all matter—solids, liquids, and
gases—was built up from infinitely small aggregations of atoms. The
learned men of Greece enlarged upon his views but this philosophy
passed into oblivion with the destruction of Rome and the coming of
the Dark Ages, and it was not revived until about one hundred and
fifty years ago. The ancients could not prove their theory, while
we to-day can count the atoms and determine their size and motions;
and, exceedingly small though they be, we no longer believe them
to be indivisible in structure. On the contrary, we know that each
atom consists of particles of positive and negative electricity.
The negative electrons arrange themselves about a positive electron
for a nucleus and, rotating about it as if it were a central sun
with planets, constitute an atom. All matter reduced to the ultimate
electron is precisely alike. The difference in matter is determined
by the number of negative electrons that are attracted and held in
place by the positive nucleus that is at the center of each atom of
which a particular kind of matter is composed. Each of the ninety-two
elements which we believe constitute the ninety-two different forms
of simple matter has an atom with its own peculiar type of nucleus,
which nucleus differs from those of the others only in the amount of
positive electricity it contains. Thus hydrogen, the lightest of all
gases, whose weight is taken as unity in measuring the magnitude of
other gases, has a nucleus whose positive charge of electricity is
only sufficient to attract one negative electron. The next element,
helium, has a nucleus with a double positive charge and consequently
holds two electrons or planets to pay it homage. In like manner
the carbon atom contains six electrons; oxygen, eight; aluminum,
thirteen; nitrogen, fourteen; sulphur, sixteen; iron, twenty-six;
copper, twenty-nine; silver, forty-seven; gold, seventy-nine;
mercury, eighty; lead, eighty-two; bismuth, eighty-three; radium,
eighty-eight; thorium, ninety; and uranium, ninety-two. The chemical
union of these elementary forms of matter creates other forms. For
instance, the union of two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen
constitutes a molecule of water. But the gases of the atmosphere
are not in chemical union; they exist in the form of a mechanical
mixture, each acting as though the others were not present.
It is important that this mixture of gases that constitutes our air
be maintained in the right proportion. Only a slight difference in
relative amounts might be disastrous to life. An increase in the
oxygen would stimulate mental and physical activities and hold the
human faculties at a higher tension. Man would accomplish more in a
given time, but his span of life would be shortened; and too great an
increase in the proportion of this stimulating element would quickly
terminate life. Conversely an increase in the nitrogen would render
all life more lethargic and man would be slower to act and to think;
and too great an increase would smother every living thing.
In addition to the gases named, the air contains small amounts of
many other substances,—argon, nitric acid, ammonia, ozone, xenon,
krypton, and neon; as well as organic matter, germs, and dust in
suspension. Over the land it contains sulphates in minute quantities,
and over the sea and near the seashore salt left from the evaporated
spray.
The proportion of each component of the atmosphere by volume of the
total atmosphere is different from its proportion by weight. The
percentages for the more abundant gases are as follows:
===============+=============+===========
| BY VOLUME | BY WEIGHT
---------------+-------------+-----------
Nitrogen | 78.04 | 75.46
Oxygen | 20.99 | 23.19
Argon | 0.94 | 1.30
Carbon dioxide | 0.03 | 0.05
+-------------+-----------
| 100.00 | 100.00
===============+=============+===========
=Nitrogen.= Its principal functions are to dilute the oxygen and to
furnish food to vegetation. It is inert and does not manifest many
marked chemical affinities. Its lack of activity is shown by the fact
that it will neither support combustion nor burn.
=Oxygen.= Oxygen, unlike nitrogen, is an active element that readily
enters into chemical combination with many other elements, and it
is second in quantity to nitrogen. With hydrogen it constitutes
eight ninths, by weight, of water; combined with other elements it
constitutes forty to fifty per cent. of the crust of the earth. It
burns so readily that were it not greatly diluted by an inert gas
like nitrogen it would be difficult if not impossible to stop a
conflagration when once started. It is the vitalizing principle in
all forms of life. By its chemical union with carbon in the tissues
of plants and animals it develops the energy manifested in their
movements.
In the free air up to about seven miles high there is no variation
in the proportion of oxygen. But variations of marked importance to
health and life occur in places where ventilation is restricted, and
especially where living creatures exist in closed rooms, and where
combustion occurs in confined places. The following variations in
percentages by volume were found in careful analyses by Robert Angus
Smith: On the seashore of Scotland, 20.99; open places in London,
20.95; in a small room where a petroleum lamp had been burning six
hours, 20.83; pit of a theater at 11:30 P.M., 20.74; in a court room,
20.65; in mine pits, 20.14. He took samples from one mine that showed
18.27, the candles going out when the amount had decreased to 18.50.
The absorption of oxygen by putrid matter and by living beings
in the process of breathing, and the giving out of carbon dioxide
by both explain the deficiency of oxygen that is found over large
cities, which is more marked when the air is moving but little and
where the city is located in a depression or near swampy lands.
Both animals and plants inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide with
the unchanged nitrogen. The process automatically proceeds both night
and day. It should not be confused with the opposite action of plants
under the influence of sunlight in taking in and decomposing carbon
dioxide and expelling pure oxygen.
=Carbon Dioxide.= It forms the chief food supply of all green-leaved
plants. It is as necessary to the life of vegetation as is oxygen
in the supporting of animal life. In the ratio of seventy-seven to
one hundred there is less of this gas present in the atmosphere
in the winter than in the summer; there also is a diurnal maximum
and minimum. In the open country the amount averages about 0.035
per cent. by volume. In cities the amount is considerably greater,
frequently rising to 0.07, and at times to 0.10 when the wind
velocity is too low to scatter the excess amount that accumulates
near the ground. Any quantity in excess of 0.06 per cent.,
especially if combined with the organic matter exhaled from the
lungs and from the pores of the skin by animals and man, is injurious
to health. Angus Smith found as much as 0.32 per cent. in crowded
theaters, and 2.50 in mines. The latter amount soon would destroy
animal life.
Vegetation, in addition to the inhalation of oxygen and the
expiration of carbon dioxide at all hours, absorbs the latter during
the day, and under the influence of sunlight the green granular
matter that constitutes the chlorophyll of the cells of the leaves
decomposes it, the plant retaining the carbon and giving out the
oxygen. Because of the absence of sunshine the chemical activities of
the plant are altered at night and the absorption of carbon dioxide
ceases; therefore over the land the maximum amount occurs during the
nighttime. This gas is dissolved in sea water and given off with a
rise in temperature, which causes the maximum amount over oceans to
occur at midday.
Carbon dioxide is 1.50 times as dense as an equal volume of
atmospheric air. Its greater density causes it to collect in mines,
sewers, cellars, and other low places, unless there is forceful
ventilation.
The American cold wave should be welcomed as the mighty scavenger of
the air. Its high velocity and great density cause it to search into
cracks, crevices, sewers, and cellars and expel foul accumulations.
How sweet and clean the air smells and how vigorous physically and
buoyant mentally one feels after a rain and high winds! All nature
smiles and every form of life adds its pæan of joy. Rain washes
out the carbonic acid gas (carbon dioxide) from the air, with dust
and other particles in suspension; and the cold wave enters our
places of habitation and drives out the thieving accumulations of
poisonous gases that would rob us of health and maintain conditions
of morbidity.
It cannot be too forcefully stated that oxygen, the life-sustaining
principle of the air, decreases, and carbon dioxide, a poison,
increases in air that is breathed, or in air in which lamps or gas
jets are burning; and that all places of habitation, especially
sleeping rooms, should have a continuous supply of fresh air.
=Water Vapor.= It is only a little over one half as dense as
atmospheric air. In the arid regions of the west it may form only a
fraction of one per cent. of the air by weight; while in the humid
regions in the eastern part of the United States it may constitute
as much as five per cent. The temperature being the same, the same
amount is required to saturate a given space, whether it be a vacuum
or whether it be filled with air. Air doubles its capacity for water
vapor with each increase of eighteen to twenty degrees. On a hot day
in summer, near large bodies of water, it may constitute as much as
one twentieth by weight of the lower air, while on a cold day in
winter it may form no more than one thousandth part. When the air
contains all the water vapor it can hold, it is said to be saturated;
no more can be added to it until its temperature is raised, and but
a slight lowering of its temperature will precipitate a part of its
water vapor in the form of dew, frost, rain, hail, or snow. This is
the reason it is usually called water vapor instead of a gas. Under
the influence of heat that is below the freezing point, ice and snow
may be changed from the solid to the gaseous form, and water vapor
may be precipitated as frost or snow without passing through the
liquid state.
=The Dew Point= is the temperature of saturation,—the temperature to
which a body of air must be reduced before condensation can occur and
some of its water vapor return to the liquid or solid state.
=The Relative Humidity= is expressed in percentages of the amount
necessary to saturate. At a temperature of 32° air may continue to
increase its vapor of water until it contains 2.11 grains per cubic
foot, when it will be saturated and its relative humidity be one
hundred per cent. If this same air be suddenly raised in temperature
to 51° its capacity per cubic foot will be increased to twice what
it was at 32°, the 2.11 grains will be equal to only one half the
number necessary to saturate, and the relative humidity be expressed
by fifty per cent. instead of one hundred per cent. In this way does
the capacity of air for water vapor increase. Thus it is seen that
the relative humidity of the air may increase during the cooling of
nighttime without the addition of any vapor of water, and, in fact,
with a decrease. The increase of relative humidity after nightfall
is greater in the country than in the city, where the presence of
pavements and brick buildings retards the loss of heat.
=The Absolute Humidity= is expressed in grains the cubic foot. The
hygrometer is employed to measure the amount of water vapor.
=Hydrogen= is the lightest of all known gases. Its density in
comparison with ordinary air is only .0692. It is combustible, and
when five volumes of atmospheric air are mixed with two volumes of
hydrogen the mixture explodes when ignited. It is supplied to the
air by active volcanoes and in other ways, but the speed of its
molecules is such that it readily escapes from the earth’s attraction
and passes outward into space.
=Ozone= (Greek, ozo, I smell) is highly electrified oxygen, in which
the molecules are broken up and reformed so as to contain additional
atoms. It is formed by the disruptive discharge of lightning and by
the great amount of electricity present in the high levels of the
atmosphere, and possibly in minute quantities by the evaporation of
fog and water near the earth. It is always found in the presence of
waterfalls and spraying fountains. It is a powerful sanitary agent,
readily entering into union with decaying matter. This fact accounts
for the total absence of ozone from the air of large cities.
Ozone, in the minute quantities found in nature, is healthful, but
when breathed in a condensed form it has a highly irritating effect
on the mucous surfaces of the respiratory passages, and the quantity
is not large that will cause death. The healthfulness of mountain air
may be due largely to the increase with elevation in the quantity of
ozone and electricity in the air, as well as to the less number of
disease germs and dust motes. The invigorating effects of the crisp
air of the frosty morning and of the cold wave in winter may be
increased by the activities of ozone.
Ozone has two daily maxima, the principal one occurring between 4 and
9 A.M. The minima occur between 10 A.M. and 1 P.M., and between 10
P.M. and midnight. The winter furnishes an amount greatly in excess
of the summer, due not only to the less amount of decaying matter to
take up the ozone in winter, but to the higher and more persistent
winds mixing the lower and upper air. The amount is greater over the
sea than over the land, probably due to the absence of oxidizable
matter, which allows the ozone to accumulate over the water. It is
more abundant with westerly than with easterly winds, due to the fact
that westerly winds have a downward component of motion; but if the
westerly winds be weak and the easterly winds come from over a large
body of water the conditions may be reversed.
=Microbes of the Air.= The air transports vast armies of unseen
workers. Some are enemies; others are benefactors of the human
family. The useful varieties are energetic in clearing away the
refuse of animal and vegetable life, in fixing fertilizing gases in
the soil, in giving flavor to fruits and proper growth to leguminous
crops, in transforming the crudest must into the best claret,
and the poorest tobacco leaf into the fragrant Havana; in curing
cheese and butter and fermenting beer, and in a multitude of other
useful employments. The malevolent varieties, if they gain lodgment
in suitable human tissues before sunlight weakens their virility,
disseminate certain forms of disease.
In picking a permanent place of abode, remember that there are many
less disease microbes in the air of the open country than in that of
the city, and that few are found in the air of mountains, or in that
of the ocean. The average number of bacteria in a cubic meter of air
in the city of Paris has been found to be 4790, while ten miles away
in the country the number was only 345.
Accurate analyses of the air of crowded tenements always have shown
large numbers of bacteria, but the number was found to be small in
well-ventilated city houses that let in an abundance of sunshine to
their interiors. It is better to have color in the cheeks of the
occupants than in the furnishings of a house. Curtains and heavy
drapery not only furnish a refuge for the microbes of disease, but
they may be so hung as to exclude the purifying sunshine. The amount
of sunshine is nearly as important as the quantity of air, for
most of the microbes of disease quickly die, or are rendered less
virulent, under its influence.
Bacteria exist in small numbers, if at all, at altitudes where snow
forms, but snow gathers them as it falls through the lower air. Ice
contains bacteria, but not in any such quantity as the water from
which it freezes. Ice forms in the open at the surface of the water,
or about numerous small particles of matter in suspension, which rise
at once to the top as soon as the ice congeals about them in the form
of a buoyant covering; meanwhile sediment is continually settling
to the bottom, carrying bacteria with it. Ice forms more readily in
quiet water, where sedimentation has been most rapid, and where,
therefore, there are the fewest bacteria in position to be included.
More disease germs exist in river water in winter than in summer,
which may be due to the greater disinfecting power of the sun’s rays
during summer.
=Dust Motes of the Air.= As the earth pursues its course about the
sun, dust rains into its atmosphere from outer space. Meteors that
are burned through the heat generated by striking into our air
contribute to the supply, as do volcanoes, combustion, spray from the
ocean, and matter lifted up by the action of the wind.
Dust from the eruption of Krakatoa was wafted entirely around the
earth, falling upon the decks of ships in all the seas of the world.
It affected the colors of the sky for two or three years after the
explosion.
As in the case of microbes, the number of dust particles is far
greater in cities than in the country, being least on high mountain
tops and over the oceans. The air in large cities invariably shows
hundreds of thousands of dust motes to the cubic centimeter, that of
the village thousands, and that of the open country some hundreds.
Dust-free air is also germ-free. Many experiments have shown that
air freed of dust motes has at the same time been cleared of the
microörganisms that cause disease, putrefaction, and fermentation;
and that germ-free flesh or liquids may be indefinitely exposed in
such air without fermentation or decay.
=How Dust Motes Are Counted.= Many of the particles are too small
to be seen by the highest powers of the microscope, yet Aitken, by
a most ingenious method of making them centers of condensation—that
is, making them the nuclei of small raindrops—was able to count the
number in a given volume of air. When ordinary air is saturated
and then cooled the cloud formed is so dense that it is impossible
to count the tiny droplets that form the cloud. But we can make
the number of dust particles (and therefore the number of visible
points of condensation) in a given volume of air as small as we
wish by mixing a little dusty air with a large amount of dustless
air, and we can allow the particles to fall on a bright surface and
can count them by means of a lens or microscope. By simply allowing
for the proportion of the dustless to the dusty air, and making a
corresponding allowance for the dilution, we calculate the number of
particles.
=Dust Motes and Illumination of the Atmosphere.= One of the most
important functions of dust motes is the diffusion or scattering of
sunlight. What a different world this would be without these tiny
inanimate friends of man! If there were no dust in suspension in the
air, nothing would be visible except what received direct light, or
light reflected from some illuminated surface, and the air occupying
space between illuminated objects would be practically dark. If the
observer be in a room with a powerful electric light he would see the
walls and the objects in the room, but if the air were free of dust
motes, he would find that the space between him and the walls and
between the various objects would be as inky black as is the space
between the twinkling stars on a clear night.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.—Showing light from lamp _a_ passing into
dust-free air at _b_, and passing out at _c_ without illuminating the
interior.]
Figure 2 is a cubical box, with a glass front. If a glutinous
substance be spread over the bottom and the box allowed to remain
quiescent for from five to seven days the dust motes will slowly
settle down and attach themselves to the bottom. The air then will
be what is called “optically pure.” Now, if it be taken into a dark
room and an inclosed lamp at _a_ be allowed to send a beam of light
into the window at _b_ and out at _c_, it will be found that the
interior remains dark no matter how powerful the light from the lamp.
The light is seen to enter and to leave but where it encounters the
dust-free air there is nothing to scatter the light rays and they
remain invisible to the eye.
=Dust Motes Prolong Twilight.= The bending or refraction of light
as the sun’s rays pass obliquely through the air at sunrise and at
sunset displaces the apparent position of the sun, elevating it by
an amount about equal to its own apparent diameter, so that one may
see it and receive its light when geometrically it is entirely below
the horizon. A little later in the evening and its rays fall upon the
upper air too obliquely to be bent down to the earth by refraction;
but darkness does not yet ensue, for the rays are scattered by the
dust motes and possibly by the molecules of the gases and sent
downward from particle to particle, resulting in a soft shimmering
light that almost imperceptibly fades away, and which in higher
latitudes may last for hours.
CHAPTER V
LIGHT, HEAT, AND TEMPERATURE
MORE WONDERFUL THAN ANY FICTION ARE THE FACT OF INVISIBLE LIGHT,
AND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HEAT AND TEMPERATURE
The heat that escapes from the earth’s interior is minute in
comparison to that received from the sun, which is the main source
of the earth’s supply. Heat is manifested by the motions of the
molecules of matter, whether solid, liquid, or gaseous. It is
transmitted through space in some mysterious manner, for space is
practically void of an atmosphere. One cannot conceive of motion
taking place in a void, for there is nothing to move. Therefore it is
assumed that interstellar space must be filled with a transmitting
medium; to this the name of ether has been given. Nothing is known of
its structure, but it is believed that it penetrates all bodies and
fills the space between their molecules.
=How Heat and Light Reach the Earth.= The heat of the sun is
some forty-six thousand times as intense as is the heat of the
earth. The violent agitations of the molecules of the sun’s hot
atmosphere impart vibrations to the ether of space, which decrease
in effectiveness inversely as the square of the distance; that is
to say, that if the earth were twice as far from the sun as it is,
the intensity of the solar rays would be one fourth of what they are
now. These vibrations are called solar energy. They pass through
space without perceptibly warming or lighting it. When they encounter
the molecules of the earth’s atmosphere, and the dust and cloud in
suspension in the air, or impinge upon the solid matter of the earth,
they are transmuted back into molecular agitations, and manifest
themselves in a multitude of forms, such as heat, light, chemical
rays, electricity, etc.
=The Difference between Heat and Temperature.= The agitation of
the molecules of a substance set up by the absorption of heat is
indicated by temperature, which gives no measure of the quantity of
heat absorbed, the quantity varying widely for different kinds of
matter. The amount of heat necessary to raise one pound of water
1° F. is the heat unit generally employed in commerce; but in
scientific research the amount necessary to raise one gram of water
1° Centigrade is the unit of heat best adapted to use. It is called
the gram-calorie.
Let us take a glass filled with boiling water. You see the glass and
the water because they reflect to the eye light waves received from
some source,—possibly the sunlight that is diffused by the dust motes
of the air into the room through the window. But the glass and the
water radiate other waves to which the eye is not sensible; these
invisible long heat waves may be felt by the nerves of the hand.
They warm all matter upon which they fall by adding to the agitation
of the molecules of which it is composed; but they do not warm all
matter equally. The waves that reach dark bodies are broken up; that
is to say, absorbed. Their energy is transmuted into sensible heat,
and in the place of the waves we have molecular vibrations in the
matter, which are made manifest by a rise in its temperature. Dark
rough surfaces more completely absorb the waves and therefore rise
to a higher temperature than the same surfaces when smooth. When the
waves encounter bright and highly polished surfaces the effect is
quite different; then most of them are reflected away and therefore
warm the matter but little. These reflected waves are not broken up,
but on the contrary start off in some new direction, possibly falling
upon and warming some matter more receptive to their influence. The
higher the polish the more completely are the waves reflected.
=Difference between Light Waves, Heat Waves, and Sound Waves.= The
light and the heat waves of the ether are infinitesimal ripples as
compared to the backward and forward pulsations that constitute
the sound waves of the air. Within a space of one inch there are
sixty-six thousand of the violet waves of light, which are the
shortest etheric vibrations to which the human eye responds, and over
thirty thousand of the red waves, the longest that affect the eye;
while the sound waves of the air vary from about one foot for the
shrill notes of the human voice to four feet for the middle C of the
pianoforte. A shrill whistle produces waves of about one half inch.
There are twenty-two thousand of certain heat waves to the inch, and
these, like some of the light waves of the ether, are invisible.
There is also a vast difference between the velocity of vibration
of the air waves and those of the ether. The human ear is sensitive
to sound waves of somewhere between twenty-nine per second to
thirty-eight thousand per second; while the eye responds to light
waves of from five hundred million to one billion per second. Some
ears are better adjusted to the low vibrations and some to the high,
and the ears of no one hear any but a small part of the melody of a
great symphony. Tyndall could hear the sharp chirp of thousands of
insects that were inaudible to his guide as the two climbed the Alps,
but the guide’s ears responded to the long, slow waves that came from
the dull tread of the donkey’s hoofs farther up the mountain, which
waves the scientist was unable to hear. Likewise some eyes are able
to penetrate far into the violet, or the red, or both, and some are
unable to distinguish between certain colors.
=Chemical Rays of Light.= The chemical or photographic rays
have still shorter waves than the violet. They produce special
physiological effects in vegetable and animal tissues, and, acting
upon particular kinds of matter, they cause fluorescence, which
is the property possessed by some bodies of giving off, when
illuminated, light of a color different from their own and from that
of the light that illuminates them. These chemical rays are sometimes
called ultra-violet rays.
=Invisible Light.= From a reading of the immediately preceding
paragraphs one may be prepared for the startling statement that there
is such a thing as invisible light. Vibrations of the ether that
move slower than those that give to the eye the sensation of red are
invisible, as are those that move faster than the violet rays, and
it is certain that neither the eye of man nor of animal ever will
see but a small part of the beauty of a landscape or the delicate
coloring of a flower. The eye only takes in and renders sensible
to the brain the red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet,
and their various tints, but the delicate instruments of science
reveal many other colors. One sees as through a glass darkly, for the
gentle signals that might reveal the beauties of Paradise fall upon
the eye unheeded. A keener vision and a more complete appreciation
of the beauties and the wonders of the universe await one on the
other side of the gauzy veil of immortality. The finger tips of the
outstretched arms may span the river of life and the ethereal breath
of loved ones may be caressing one’s cheek. The music of the spheres
is not a myth; the lily or the rose as it opens its petals to receive
the benediction of the morning sun may give forth a veritable pæan
of joy. A rose bush may be a grander symphony than anything that
Beethoven ever wrote. What to us is the invisible light may be the
illumination that guides the sweep of the angels’ wings.
=How Heat Moves through or Is Transmitted by Matter.= Heat passes
by contact from the warmer to the colder molecules of a body. This
action is called conduction. When one end of a bar of iron is held in
a fire, the end away from the fire soon becomes too hot to hold in
the hand, because heat is rapidly transferred from the hot portion
of the bar to the cooler portion by conduction, showing that iron
is a good conductor. On the other hand, the end of a stick of wood
can be held in the fire until it is completely consumed without
the other end becoming too warm to hold, indicating that wood is
a poor conductor. Metals are the best conductors, silver leading
the list, with copper second. Snow and ice and fibrous and porous
substances are poor conductors, and are called insulators. Air and
water are also poor conductors. The fur of animals and the feathers
of birds protect against the rapid loss of heat because they contain
numerous interstices filled with air, a poor conductor. Heat is lost
by radiation when the molecules of matter set up vibration in the
ether. The atmosphere itself performs this function on a large scale
when the sky is cloudless, so that radiated heat is not absorbed by
the cloud covering and its loss into space restricted. When air or
water is not evenly or homogeneously heated a circulation is set up
in which the colder part settles down and the warmer rises. This is
called convection. The air that is heated by contact with a stove
rises and passes along the ceiling to the colder parts of the room,
gradually parting with its heat until it is no warmer than the air
next adjacent to it, and slowly settling to the floor as the cold
air beneath it moves toward the stove, is warmed and sent aloft,
the first air finally making a complete circuit and returning to
the stove again. In this way the heat is distributed by convection
throughout the whole room. When one part of the earth’s surface
becomes hotter than another a similar action takes place on a large
scale. The region of greater temperature warms the air above it, and
the surrounding denser air flows in along the surface, forcing the
lighter air to rise, when it in turn is similarly warmed and driven
up.
The clear waters of lakes and rivers and of the ocean permit the
passage of heat waves to a considerable depth before they are
completely absorbed. On a cold day in winter, when the sun is shining
brightly, a room with spacious windows may become as warm as though
heated by a furnace, simply by the capacity of the glass in the
windows to transmit the heat waves of the sun without considerable
absorption, and at the same time prevent the escape of the longer
heat waves that are radiated from the interior walls of the room.
This capacity of matter to transmit heat waves without absorption
is called diathermancy. The clear atmosphere is an exceedingly good
transmitter, and rock salt is one of the best of all solids.
The capacity of a body to transmit light without absorbing it and
becoming luminous is called transparency. Air freed of dust motes
is almost perfectly transparent. In this state it is said to be
optically pure. But the ordinary air of nature, with its moisture
and dust, absorbs most of the blue wave lengths and also many of the
longer ones of the other colors of the spectrum.
The capacity of a body for heat is called its specific heat. With
but few exceptions the specific heats of liquids are much greater
than those of solids or gases. It requires ten times the quantity of
heat to raise a pound of water one degree that it does a pound of
iron. Ice has the greatest specific heat of any of the solids, except
paraffin and wood.
When a solid is melted or a liquid vaporized a large amount of heat
becomes latent, insensible to the touch; it disappears as heat. This
is one of the most wonderful of the phenomena of nature. It matters
not how long the time may be, an hour, a day, a year, or a thousand
years after the solid is melted or the liquid turned to vapor, so
soon as the vapor returns to the liquid state or the liquid to a
solid condition, the latent heat becomes sensible in exactly the
same degree in which it previously existed. Let us illustrate with a
pound of ice at zero F. Sixteen heat units, or sixteen times as much
heat as is required to raise one pound of water one degree, must be
absorbed by this pound of ice to raise its temperature to the melting
point (32°); and then one hundred forty-four more heat units must be
absorbed to so far overcome the tendency of the molecules to adhere,
or remain together, that the molecules may roll the one about the
other in the liquid form, but with this important difference: the
one hundred forty-four units become latent and do not, therefore,
cause any increase in temperature, as the sixteen heat units did
in raising the temperature of the ice. The large quantity of heat
required to change the ice to a liquid is called the latent heat of
melting. Any further addition of heat after the melting is complete
causes an increase in temperature, and one hundred eighty heat units
will raise it to the boiling point. Water boils at 212° at sea
level and normal pressure; that is to say, at that temperature the
agitation of the molecules of water is so great as to overcome both
cohesion and the weight with which the air presses down upon them,
and cause them to fly away in the form of steam, which is invisible
when confined inside a boiler. But the entire pound of water is not
instantly changed to the gaseous condition, for with the sending off
of the first few molecules some heat is rendered latent, and more
must be supplied or the boiling ceases; in fact the enormous quantity
of 964.62 heat units must be supplied to entirely change the pound of
water to steam, but at no time does the temperature rise above 212°.
As in the former case of changing the solid to a liquid, a large
amount of heat becomes latent; in this case it is called the latent
heat of vaporization.
Now carefully fix in the mind that a liquid does not need to be
raised to its boiling point before vaporization begins, for it
operates at all temperatures, even after the liquid is frozen, but
much more rapidly from the liquid. If one wishes to test this: weigh
a piece of ice during very cold weather. Then leave it out in a
temperature that is below freezing for several days, and on weighing
again it will be found that the ice has lost weight. All evaporation
produces a cooling effect because of the heat that is rendered latent
in the process of changing the liquid or the solid to a gaseous form.
The drier the air the greater is the cooling effected by keeping the
surface wetted, and the cooling is accelerated by placing the wet
object where there is a free circulation of air.
A wooden water bucket that has been soaked for a day or two so
that every part of the wood is saturated with water, will, if kept
closed, keep water all day in the open field practically as cool as
when it left the deep well, and often cooler. Not enough use is made
of cooling by evaporation by those who have not ice in the summer.
Inexpensive and fairly effective refrigerators may be made, by any
mechanic, of lattice-work sides covered with any thick fabric and
kept moist, which would keep milk, butter, fruit, vegetables, and
cooked meats in good condition if placed in a hallway with a good
circulation of air, or in any shady place with good ventilation.
Most solids expand with gain in temperature and therefore possess
greater volume in the liquid form than in the solid, and the
temperature of their melting points rises as they are subjected to
increasing pressure. The law reverses when applied to ice, which
contracts in melting. To few is it known that a skater on ice really
rides upon water molecules, for the sharp edge of the skate, when
applied to the ice under the weight of one’s body, is lubricated by
the slight melting of the ice in immediate contact with the skate,
the molecules of water returning to the form of ice as soon as the
skater passes and the pressure is relieved. The strange phenomenon
may be witnessed by passing a wire through a block of ice without
severing it into two pieces, by attaching heavy weights to the two
ends of the wire and suspending it across the ice, the ice slowly
melting as the result of the pressure applied by the underside of the
wire and freezing molecules closing the space on top of the wire. By
this process do we account for the moving of glaciers down tortuous
valleys as though they were liquids.
=Altitude Measured by Change in Boiling Point of Water.= The boiling
point of water at sea level and ordinary air pressure is 212°. If the
pressure of the atmosphere were increased to about thirty pounds,
instead of about fifteen to the square inch it would be necessary to
raise water to 250° before boiling would begin. The changes of air
pressure due to the passage of the severe storms of winter may cause
the boiling point of water to vary from 207° to 215°. This knowledge
may be useful in measuring the heights of mountains, although the
method does not give close results. The decrease of pressure with
altitude lowers the boiling point, the amount being approximately one
degree for each 555 feet of ascent. The best results may be secured
by having a person at the base of the mountain, where the elevation
above sea level is known, determine the boiling point at the same
time that a person on the mountain top does. The thermometers should
be read closely to the fraction of a degree.
With the barometer at its normal height of thirty inches, air at 60°
will instantly rise to the phenomenal temperature of 175.50 if it be
confined and its pressure doubled, and it will diminish to one half
of its former volume. But if its pressure be diminished one half, its
volume will expand to double its original size and its temperature
will fall from 60° to 2.4°. From these facts the reader would
naturally expect to find low pressure of the atmosphere accompanying
cold waves and high pressure to be coincident with warm conditions,
which is exactly the reverse of what actually occurs in the free air
of nature. This apparent contradiction will be made plain in the
treatment of cold waves, page 124.
A temperature of -459° on the Fahrenheit scale and -273.1° on the
Centigrade represents what is called absolute zero. It is supposed
to be the temperature at which there is no motion of the molecules
of matter. Bodies or planets without atmospheres have temperatures
approaching absolute zero, for there is no protecting envelope to
absorb heat or to prevent the instant radiation into space of that
which impinges upon the body. Our moon is an illustration, and
notwithstanding the fierce beating upon its surface of the solar
energy it remains incased in the intense cold of space.
The thermometer is the instrument that measures temperature. It was
not until eighty-seven years after Columbus discovered America that
Galileo discovered the principle of the thermometer. This first
instrument was crude. It consisted of a glass bulb, containing air,
terminating below in a long glass tube, which dipped into a vessel
containing colored water. When the temperature fell the contraction
of the air in the bulb caused the water to rise in the tube, and
when the temperature rose the expansion of the air forced the water
to a lower level. Galileo also invented the alcohol thermometer in
1611, but the determination of the zero and some fixed point above
it, by which to graduate the scale, took years to evolve. The modern
alcohol and mercury thermometers consist of a bulb filled with the
liquid, and a tube partly filled, the upper part being a tolerably
complete vacuum, allowing the liquid freedom of movement up and down
the tube. When a tube is broken one is surprised to see that the
diameter of the bore is less than that of the smallest fuzzy hair
from the back of the hand. The size of the column of mercury is
magnified by the action of light passing through the glass of the
tube.
Temperatures are usually taken in the shade. The instrument should
be free from all bodies that could conduct heat to it, and it should
have free circulation of air about it.
In a complete meteorological station automatically recording
instruments, too complicated for the use of the layman, record for
each moment of time the temperature of the air and its pressure, the
periods of sunshine, the duration and the amount of rainfall, and the
direction and velocity of the wind.
CHAPTER VI
THE ADVANTAGE OF TAKING WEATHER OBSERVATIONS AND APPLYING THEM TO
ONE’S PERSONAL NEEDS
FORECASTS MADE FROM THE ANEROID BAROMETER—COLDS PREVENTED BY
MOISTENING AIR IN LIVING ROOMS—A CRIMINAL HANGED AND AN INNOCENT
MAN FREED BY WEATHER RECORDS
=Observations from Kites.= It is strange that the Chinese, who
have been flying kites many thousand years, should not have made
improvements in the primitive construction of these devices.
It remained for Wendham, in 1866, to perceive the advantage of
superimposing two or more planes, one above the other, for the
purpose of securing a larger area of sustaining surface. After
examining Figure 3 almost any one can build an efficient kite.
Heights of two to three thousand feet may be reached by using
cable-laid twine No. 24, but in order to gain great altitudes
pianoforte wire must be used. Soft pine is the best and most
available material. Spruce is stronger, but more difficult to
secure. The sticks should be straight-grained. The cloth may be silk
or the stronger and finer grades of cotton. It should be torn, not
cut. The ends will then be true and square with the fiber of the
cloth. Kites are used not only to secure weather observations, but
they have been used to draw sleds in the Arctic region, and to draw
wagons and boats. By adjusting the points at which the pulling cords
are attached to the boat an ingenious sailor is able to proceed
nearly at right angles to the direction of the wind.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.—STANDARD WEATHER BUREAU KITE.]
When it is known that a box kite having only sixty square feet of
sustaining surface, flying at a considerable height, may lift a
person of ordinary size, one is impressed with the idea that vessels
of commerce might employ kites of large dimensions to increase the
speed of sailing ships. The kites would fly in a stratum whose
velocity is not restricted by friction with the surface of the water.
To launch a kite: run out about one hundred and fifty feet of the
cord or wire while the kite is held by an assistant, who should give
the kite a toss upward in the direction in which it must go. It is
important that it be cast off directly in line with the wind. If the
wind is light it may be necessary to run a short distance with a long
line out in order to effect a launching.
=Voluntary Weather Observers.= There are more than three thousand
voluntary or coöperating observers in the U. S. Weather Bureau.
They receive no compensation other than the publications of the
Bureau. They are required to read their instruments but once each
day, as maximum and minimum thermometers record the highest and
the lowest temperatures since they were last read and set. About
sunset is the most satisfactory time for making the readings, since
the thermometers will then show both the extremes for the past
twenty-four hours. As a rule but one voluntary observer is accepted
for a county. They are furnished without charge with maximum and
minimum thermometers, instrument shelters and rain gauges, but not
with wind vanes, anemometers for recording direction and velocity
of wind, or barometers. But those who desire to become expert
in forecasting the weather, as all may who study the chapter on
forecasting, should equip themselves with an aneroid barometer, so
that they may note the changes in the pressure of the air.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.—Comparison of the Thermometer Scales.]
COMPARISON OF THERMOMETER SCALES
A little study of the accompanying information and diagram will
enable any one to form a clear idea of the various thermometer scales
and to convert temperatures from one scale to another.
_Table of fixed points._
-----------+----------------+----------------+-----------------+
Scale. | Temperature of | Temperature of | No. of degrees |
| melting ice. | boiling water. | between melting |
| | | ice and boiling |
| | | water. |
-----------+----------------+----------------+-----------------+
Centigrade | 0 | 100 | 100 |
Reaumur | 0 | 80 | 80 |
Fahrenheit | 32 | 212 | 180 |
-----------+----------------+----------------+-----------------+
Only Fahrenheit and Centigrade scales are in general use, and the
accompanying plate is designed to enable observers to convert
temperature readings from one scale to the other without resorting to
a mathematical formula.
For accurate and precise reductions between the different scales the
following rules should be used:
1. To convert Fahrenheit to Centigrade: Subtract 32 and multiply by
five ninths.
2. To convert Centigrade to Fahrenheit: Multiply by nine fifths and
add 32.
3. To convert Fahrenheit to Reaumur: Subtract 32 and multiply by four
ninths.
4. To convert Reaumur to Fahrenheit: Multiply by nine fourths and add
32.
5. To convert Centigrade to Reaumur: Multiply by four fifths.
6. To convert Reaumur to Centigrade: Multiply by five fourths.
An instrument shelter (Figure 4) is employed to screen off the direct
and reflected sunshine, and to keep the thermometers dry. This
shelter is a box with louvered sides, constructed in such form that
there is a free circulation of air through it. It should be exposed
in an open space as far away from buildings as may be convenient,
or on a housetop, and be as free from shadows as possible. If such
position cannot be secured, then place it on the north side of a
building.
[Illustration: FIG. 6.—Dry and Wet Bulb Thermometers.]
=Comparison of Centigrade and Fahrenheit.= Only Fahrenheit and
Centigrade are in general use. Figure 5 is designed to enable
observers to convert temperature readings from one scale to the other
without resorting to a mathematical formula. For precise reductions
the following rules apply:
To convert Fahrenheit to Centigrade: Subtract 32 and multiply by five
ninths.
To convert Centigrade to Fahrenheit: Multiply by nine fifths and add
32.
=Humidity Affects Health and Complexion.= The importance to health of
maintaining a proper humidity in living quarters during the winter
months and during all months in the arid and semi-arid regions of the
West is not fully appreciated. Each habitation should be supplied
with one to several hygrometers (Fig. 6), and frequent readings
should be taken of the dry and the wet bulb thermometers so as to be
familiar with the conditions under which one is living.
RELATIVE HUMIDITY TABLES
Temperature Readings in Degrees Fahrenheit. Relative Humidity
Readings in Per Cent. Barometric Pressure 29.0 inches.
(Part 1 of 7)
============+======================================================+
| DIFFERENCE IN DEGREES FAHRENHEIT BETWEEN WET |
READINGS | AND DRY BULB THERMOMETERS. |
OF DRY BULB +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
THERMOMETER | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
20 | 85 | 70 | 56 | 42 | 28 | 14 | | | | | |
21 | 86 | 71 | 57 | 44 | 30 | 17 | 3 | | | | |
22 | 86 | 72 | 59 | 45 | 32 | 19 | 7 | | | | |
23 | 87 | 73 | 60 | 47 | 34 | 22 | 10 | | | | |
24 | 87 | 74 | 61 | 49 | 36 | 24 | 12 | 0 | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
25 | 87 | 75 | 63 | 50 | 38 | 27 | 15 | 4 | | | |
26 | 88 | 75 | 64 | 52 | 40 | 29 | 18 | 7 | | | |
27 | 88 | 76 | 65 | 53 | 42 | 31 | 20 | 9 | | | |
28 | 88 | 77 | 66 | 55 | 44 | 33 | 23 | 12 | 2 | | |
29 | 89 | 78 | 67 | 56 | 45 | 35 | 25 | 15 | 5 | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
30 | 89 | 78 | 68 | 57 | 47 | 37 | 27 | 17 | 8 | | |
31 | 89 | 79 | 69 | 58 | 49 | 39 | 29 | 20 | 10 | 1 | |
32 | 90 | 79 | 69 | 60 | 50 | 41 | 31 | 22 | 13 | 4 | |
33 | 90 | 80 | 71 | 61 | 52 | 42 | 33 | 24 | 16 | 7 | |
34 | 90 | 81 | 72 | 62 | 53 | 44 | 35 | 27 | 18 | 9 | 1 |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
35 | 91 | 82 | 73 | 64 | 55 | 46 | 37 | 29 | 20 | 12 | 4 |
36 | 91 | 82 | 73 | 65 | 56 | 48 | 39 | 31 | 23 | 14 | 6 |
37 | 91 | 83 | 74 | 66 | 58 | 49 | 41 | 33 | 25 | 17 | 9 |
38 | 91 | 83 | 75 | 67 | 59 | 51 | 43 | 35 | 27 | 19 | 12 |
39 | 92 | 84 | 76 | 68 | 60 | 52 | 44 | 37 | 29 | 21 | 14 |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
40 | 92 | 84 | 76 | 68 | 61 | 53 | 46 | 38 | 31 | 23 | 16 |
41 | 92 | 84 | 77 | 69 | 62 | 54 | 47 | 40 | 33 | 26 | 18 |
42 | 92 | 85 | 77 | 70 | 62 | 55 | 48 | 41 | 34 | 28 | 21 |
43 | 92 | 85 | 78 | 70 | 63 | 56 | 49 | 43 | 36 | 29 | 23 |
44 | 93 | 85 | 78 | 71 | 64 | 57 | 51 | 44 | 37 | 31 | 24 |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
45 | 93 | 86 | 79 | 71 | 65 | 58 | 52 | 45 | 39 | 33 | 26 |
46 | 93 | 86 | 79 | 72 | 65 | 59 | 53 | 46 | 40 | 34 | 28 |
47 | 93 | 86 | 79 | 73 | 66 | 60 | 54 | 47 | 41 | 35 | 29 |
48 | 93 | 87 | 80 | 73 | 67 | 60 | 54 | 48 | 42 | 36 | 31 |
49 | 93 | 87 | 80 | 74 | 67 | 61 | 55 | 49 | 43 | 37 | 32 |
------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
(Part 2 of 7)
============+=================================================
| DIFFERENCE IN DEGREES FAHRENHEIT BETWEEN WET
READINGS | AND DRY BULB THERMOMETERS.
OF DRY BULB +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
THERMOMETER | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21
------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
20 | | | | | | | | | |
21 | | | | | | | | | |
22 | | | | | | | | | |
23 | | | | | | | | | |
24 | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | |
25 | | | | | | | | | |
26 | | | | | | | | | |
27 | | | | | | | | | |
28 | | | | | | | | | |
29 | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | |
30 | | | | | | | | | |
31 | | | | | | | | | |
32 | | | | | | | | | |
33 | | | | | | | | | |
34 | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | |
35 | | | | | | | | | |
36 | | | | | | | | | |
37 | 1 | | | | | | | | |
38 | 4 | | | | | | | | |
39 | 7 | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | |
40 | 9 | 2 | | | | | | | |
41 | 11 | 5 | | | | | | | |
42 | 14 | 7 | 0 | | | | | | |
43 | 16 | 9 | 3 | | | | | | |
44 | 18 | 12 | 5 | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | |
45 | 20 | 14 | 8 | 2 | | | | | |
46 | 22 | 16 | 10 | 4 | | | | | |
47 | 23 | 17 | 12 | 6 | 1 | | | | |
48 | 25 | 19 | 14 | 8 | 3 | | | | |
49 | 26 | 21 | 15 | 10 | 5 | | | | |
------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
RELATIVE HUMIDITY TABLES—Continued
Temperature Readings in Degrees Fahrenheit. Relative Humidity
Readings in Per Cent. Barometric Pressure 29.0 inches.
(Part 3 of 7)
============+======================================================+
| DIFFERENCE IN DEGREES FAHRENHEIT BETWEEN WET |
READINGS | AND DRY BULB THERMOMETERS. |
OF DRY BULB +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
THERMOMETER | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
50 | 93 | 87 | 81 | 74 | 68 | 62 | 56 | 50 | 44 | 39 | 33 |
51 | 94 | 87 | 81 | 75 | 69 | 63 | 57 | 51 | 45 | 40 | 35 |
52 | 94 | 88 | 81 | 75 | 69 | 63 | 58 | 52 | 46 | 41 | 36 |
53 | 94 | 88 | 82 | 75 | 70 | 64 | 58 | 53 | 47 | 42 | 37 |
54 | 94 | 88 | 82 | 76 | 70 | 65 | 59 | 54 | 48 | 43 | 38 |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
55 | 94 | 88 | 82 | 76 | 71 | 65 | 60 | 55 | 49 | 44 | 39 |
56 | 94 | 88 | 82 | 77 | 71 | 66 | 61 | 55 | 50 | 45 | 40 |
57 | 94 | 88 | 83 | 77 | 72 | 66 | 61 | 56 | 51 | 46 | 41 |
58 | 94 | 89 | 83 | 77 | 72 | 67 | 62 | 57 | 52 | 47 | 42 |
59 | 94 | 89 | 83 | 78 | 73 | 68 | 63 | 58 | 53 | 48 | 43 |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
60 | 94 | 89 | 84 | 78 | 73 | 68 | 63 | 58 | 53 | 49 | 44 |
61 | 94 | 89 | 84 | 79 | 74 | 68 | 64 | 59 | 54 | 50 | 45 |
62 | 94 | 89 | 84 | 79 | 74 | 69 | 64 | 60 | 55 | 50 | 46 |
63 | 95 | 90 | 84 | 79 | 74 | 70 | 65 | 60 | 56 | 51 | 47 |
64 | 95 | 90 | 85 | 79 | 75 | 70 | 66 | 61 | 56 | 52 | 48 |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
65 | 95 | 90 | 85 | 80 | 75 | 70 | 66 | 62 | 57 | 53 | 48 |
66 | 95 | 90 | 85 | 80 | 76 | 71 | 66 | 62 | 58 | 53 | 49 |
67 | 95 | 90 | 85 | 80 | 76 | 71 | 67 | 62 | 58 | 54 | 50 |
68 | 95 | 90 | 85 | 81 | 76 | 72 | 67 | 63 | 59 | 55 | 51 |
69 | 95 | 90 | 86 | 81 | 77 | 72 | 68 | 64 | 59 | 55 | 51 |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
70 | 95 | 90 | 86 | 81 | 77 | 72 | 68 | 64 | 60 | 56 | 52 |
71 | 95 | 90 | 86 | 82 | 77 | 73 | 69 | 64 | 60 | 56 | 53 |
72 | 95 | 91 | 86 | 82 | 78 | 73 | 69 | 65 | 61 | 57 | 53 |
73 | 95 | 91 | 86 | 82 | 78 | 73 | 69 | 65 | 61 | 58 | 54 |
74 | 95 | 91 | 86 | 82 | 78 | 74 | 70 | 66 | 62 | 58 | 54 |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
75 | 96 | 91 | 87 | 82 | 78 | 74 | 70 | 66 | 63 | 59 | 55 |
76 | 96 | 91 | 87 | 83 | 78 | 74 | 70 | 67 | 63 | 59 | 55 |
77 | 96 | 91 | 87 | 83 | 79 | 75 | 71 | 67 | 63 | 60 | 56 |
78 | 96 | 91 | 87 | 83 | 79 | 75 | 71 | 67 | 64 | 60 | 57 |
79 | 96 | 91 | 87 | 83 | 79 | 75 | 71 | 68 | 64 | 60 | 57 |
------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
(Part 4 of 7)
============+=================================================
| DIFFERENCE IN DEGREES FAHRENHEIT BETWEEN WET
READINGS | AND DRY BULB THERMOMETERS.
OF DRY BULB +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
THERMOMETER | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21
------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
50 | 28 | 22 | 17 | 12 | 7 | 2 | | | |
51 | 29 | 24 | 19 | 14 | 9 | 4 | | | |
52 | 30 | 25 | 20 | 15 | 10 | 6 | 0 | | |
53 | 32 | 27 | 22 | 17 | 12 | 7 | 3 | | |
54 | 33 | 28 | 23 | 18 | 14 | 9 | 5 | 0 | |
| | | | | | | | | |
55 | 34 | 29 | 25 | 20 | 15 | 11 | 6 | 2 | |
56 | 35 | 31 | 26 | 21 | 17 | 12 | 8 | 4 | |
57 | 36 | 32 | 27 | 23 | 18 | 14 | 10 | 5 | 1 |
58 | 38 | 33 | 28 | 24 | 20 | 15 | 11 | 7 | 3 |
59 | 39 | 34 | 30 | 25 | 21 | 17 | 13 | 9 | 5 | 1
| | | | | | | | | |
60 | 40 | 35 | 31 | 27 | 22 | 18 | 14 | 10 | 6 | 2
61 | 40 | 36 | 32 | 28 | 24 | 20 | 16 | 12 | 8 | 4
62 | 41 | 37 | 33 | 29 | 25 | 21 | 17 | 13 | 9 | 6
63 | 42 | 38 | 34 | 30 | 26 | 22 | 18 | 14 | 11 | 7
64 | 43 | 39 | 35 | 31 | 27 | 23 | 20 | 16 | 12 | 9
| | | | | | | | | |
65 | 44 | 40 | 36 | 32 | 28 | 25 | 21 | 17 | 13 | 10
66 | 45 | 41 | 37 | 33 | 29 | 26 | 22 | 18 | 15 | 11
67 | 46 | 42 | 38 | 34 | 30 | 27 | 23 | 20 | 16 | 13
68 | 47 | 43 | 39 | 35 | 31 | 28 | 24 | 21 | 17 | 14
69 | 47 | 44 | 40 | 36 | 32 | 29 | 25 | 22 | 19 | 15
| | | | | | | | | |
70 | 48 | 44 | 40 | 37 | 33 | 30 | 26 | 23 | 20 | 17
71 | 49 | 45 | 41 | 38 | 34 | 31 | 27 | 24 | 21 | 18
72 | 49 | 46 | 42 | 39 | 35 | 32 | 28 | 25 | 22 | 19
73 | 50 | 46 | 43 | 40 | 36 | 33 | 29 | 26 | 23 | 20
74 | 51 | 47 | 44 | 40 | 37 | 34 | 30 | 27 | 24 | 21
| | | | | | | | | |
75 | 51 | 48 | 44 | 41 | 38 | 34 | 31 | 28 | 25 | 22
76 | 52 | 48 | 45 | 42 | 38 | 35 | 32 | 29 | 26 | 23
77 | 52 | 49 | 46 | 42 | 39 | 36 | 33 | 30 | 27 | 24
78 | 53 | 50 | 46 | 43 | 40 | 37 | 34 | 31 | 28 | 25
79 | 54 | 50 | 47 | 44 | 41 | 37 | 34 | 31 | 29 | 26
------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
RELATIVE HUMIDITY TABLES—Continued
Temperature Readings in Degrees Fahrenheit. Relative Humidity
Readings in Per Cent. Barometric Pressure 29.0 inches.
(Part 5 of 7)
============+======================================================+
| DIFFERENCE IN DEGREES FAHRENHEIT BETWEEN WET |
READINGS | AND DRY BULB THERMOMETERS. |
OF DRY BULB +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
THERMOMETER | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
80 | 96 | 91 | 87 | 83 | 79 | 76 | 72 | 68 | 64 | 61 | 57 |
82 | 96 | 92 | 88 | 84 | 80 | 76 | 72 | 69 | 65 | 62 | 58 |
84 | 96 | 92 | 88 | 84 | 80 | 77 | 73 | 70 | 66 | 63 | 59 |
86 | 96 | 92 | 88 | 85 | 81 | 77 | 74 | 70 | 67 | 63 | 60 |
88 | 96 | 92 | 88 | 85 | 81 | 78 | 74 | 71 | 67 | 64 | 61 |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
90 | 96 | 92 | 89 | 85 | 81 | 78 | 75 | 71 | 68 | 65 | 62 |
92 | 96 | 92 | 89 | 85 | 82 | 78 | 75 | 72 | 69 | 65 | 62 |
94 | 96 | 93 | 89 | 86 | 82 | 79 | 75 | 72 | 69 | 66 | 63 |
96 | 96 | 93 | 89 | 86 | 82 | 79 | 76 | 73 | 70 | 67 | 64 |
98 | 96 | 93 | 89 | 86 | 83 | 79 | 76 | 73 | 70 | 67 | 64 |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
100 | 96 | 93 | 90 | 86 | 83 | 80 | 77 | 74 | 71 | 68 | 65 |
102 | 96 | 93 | 90 | 86 | 83 | 80 | 77 | 74 | 71 | 68 | 65 |
104 | 97 | 93 | 90 | 87 | 84 | 80 | 77 | 74 | 72 | 69 | 66 |
106 | 97 | 93 | 90 | 87 | 84 | 81 | 78 | 75 | 72 | 69 | 66 |
108 | 97 | 93 | 90 | 87 | 84 | 81 | 78 | 75 | 72 | 70 | 67 |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
110 | 97 | 95 | 90 | 87 | 84 | 81 | 78 | 76 | 73 | 70 | 67 |
112 | 97 | 94 | 90 | 87 | 84 | 82 | 79 | 76 | 73 | 70 | 68 |
114 | 97 | 94 | 91 | 88 | 85 | 82 | 79 | 76 | 74 | 71 | 68 |
116 | 97 | 94 | 91 | 88 | 85 | 82 | 79 | 77 | 74 | 71 | 69 |
118 | 97 | 94 | 91 | 88 | 85 | 82 | 79 | 77 | 74 | 72 | 69 |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
120 | 97 | 94 | 91 | 88 | 85 | 82 | 80 | 77 | 74 | 72 | 69 |
122 | 97 | 94 | 91 | 88 | 85 | 83 | 80 | 77 | 75 | 72 | 70 |
124 | 97 | 94 | 91 | 88 | 86 | 83 | 80 | 78 | 75 | 73 | 70 |
126 | 97 | 94 | 91 | 89 | 86 | 83 | 81 | 78 | 75 | 73 | 71 |
128 | 97 | 94 | 91 | 89 | 86 | 83 | 81 | 78 | 76 | 73 | 71 |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
130 | 97 | 94 | 92 | 89 | 86 | 84 | 81 | 78 | 76 | 74 | 71 |
132 | 97 | 94 | 92 | 89 | 86 | 84 | 81 | 79 | 76 | 74 | 72 |
134 | 97 | 94 | 92 | 89 | 86 | 84 | 81 | 79 | 76 | 74 | 72 |
136 | 97 | 94 | 92 | 89 | 87 | 84 | 82 | 79 | 77 | 74 | 72 |
138 | 97 | 94 | 92 | 89 | 87 | 84 | 82 | 79 | 77 | 75 | 72 |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
140 | 97 | 95 | 92 | 89 | 87 | 84 | 82 | 80 | 77 | 75 | 73 |
------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
(Part 6 of 7)
============+======================================================+
| DIFFERENCE IN DEGREES FAHRENHEIT BETWEEN WET |
READINGS | AND DRY BULB THERMOMETERS. |
OF DRY BULB +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
THERMOMETER | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |
------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
80 | 54 | 51 | 47 | 44 | 41 | 38 | 35 | 32 | 29 | 27 | 24 |
82 | 55 | 52 | 49 | 46 | 43 | 40 | 37 | 34 | 31 | 28 | 25 |
84 | 56 | 53 | 50 | 47 | 44 | 41 | 38 | 35 | 32 | 30 | 27 |
86 | 57 | 54 | 51 | 48 | 45 | 42 | 39 | 37 | 34 | 31 | 29 |
88 | 58 | 55 | 52 | 49 | 46 | 43 | 41 | 38 | 35 | 33 | 30 |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
90 | 59 | 56 | 53 | 50 | 47 | 44 | 42 | 39 | 37 | 34 | 32 |
92 | 59 | 57 | 54 | 51 | 48 | 45 | 43 | 40 | 38 | 35 | 33 |
94 | 60 | 57 | 54 | 52 | 49 | 46 | 44 | 41 | 39 | 36 | 34 |
96 | 61 | 58 | 55 | 53 | 50 | 47 | 45 | 42 | 40 | 37 | 35 |
98 | 61 | 59 | 56 | 53 | 51 | 48 | 46 | 43 | 41 | 39 | 36 |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
100 | 62 | 59 | 57 | 54 | 52 | 49 | 47 | 44 | 42 | 40 | 37 |
102 | 63 | 60 | 57 | 55 | 52 | 50 | 47 | 45 | 43 | 41 | 38 |
104 | 63 | 61 | 58 | 56 | 53 | 51 | 48 | 46 | 44 | 41 | 39 |
106 | 64 | 61 | 59 | 56 | 54 | 51 | 49 | 47 | 45 | 42 | 40 |
108 | 64 | 62 | 59 | 57 | 54 | 52 | 50 | 47 | 45 | 43 | 41 |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
110 | 65 | 62 | 60 | 57 | 55 | 53 | 50 | 48 | 46 | 44 | 42 |
112 | 65 | 63 | 60 | 58 | 56 | 53 | 51 | 49 | 47 | 45 | 43 |
114 | 66 | 63 | 61 | 59 | 56 | 54 | 52 | 50 | 48 | 45 | 43 |
116 | 66 | 64 | 61 | 59 | 57 | 55 | 52 | 50 | 48 | 46 | 44 |
118 | 67 | 64 | 62 | 60 | 57 | 55 | 53 | 51 | 49 | 47 | 45 |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
120 | 67 | 65 | 62 | 60 | 58 | 56 | 54 | 51 | 49 | 47 | 46 |
122 | 67 | 65 | 63 | 61 | 58 | 56 | 54 | 52 | 50 | 48 | 46 |
124 | 68 | 65 | 63 | 61 | 59 | 57 | 55 | 53 | 51 | 49 | 47 |
126 | 68 | 66 | 64 | 62 | 59 | 57 | 55 | 53 | 51 | 49 | 47 |
128 | 69 | 66 | 64 | 62 | 60 | 58 | 56 | 54 | 52 | 50 | 48 |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
130 | 69 | 67 | 65 | 62 | 60 | 58 | 56 | 54 | 52 | 50 | 49 |
132 | 69 | 67 | 65 | 63 | 61 | 59 | 57 | 55 | 53 | 51 | 49 |
134 | 70 | 67 | 65 | 63 | 61 | 59 | 57 | 55 | 53 | 51 | 50 |
136 | 70 | 68 | 66 | 64 | 61 | 59 | 58 | 56 | 54 | 52 | 50 |
138 | 70 | 68 | 66 | 64 | 62 | 60 | 58 | 56 | 54 | 52 | 51 |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
140 | 71 | 68 | 66 | 64 | 62 | 60 | 58 | 56 | 55 | 53 | 51 |
------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
(Part 7 of 7)
============+=======================================
| DIFFERENCE IN DEGREES FAHRENHEIT
READINGS | BETWEEN WET AND DRY BULB THERMOMETERS.
OF DRY BULB +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
THERMOMETER | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30
------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
80 | 21 | 18 | 16 | 13 | 11 | 8 | 6 | 4
82 | 23 | 20 | 18 | 15 | 13 | 10 | 8 | 6
84 | 25 | 22 | 20 | 17 | 15 | 12 | 10 | 8
86 | 26 | 24 | 21 | 19 | 17 | 14 | 12 | 10
88 | 28 | 25 | 23 | 21 | 18 | 16 | 14 | 12
| | | | | | | |
90 | 29 | 27 | 24 | 22 | 20 | 18 | 16 | 14
92 | 30 | 28 | 26 | 24 | 22 | 19 | 17 | 15
94 | 32 | 29 | 27 | 25 | 23 | 21 | 19 | 17
96 | 33 | 31 | 29 | 26 | 24 | 22 | 20 | 18
98 | 34 | 32 | 30 | 28 | 26 | 24 | 22 | 20
| | | | | | | |
100 | 35 | 33 | 31 | 29 | 27 | 25 | 23 | 21
102 | 36 | 34 | 32 | 30 | 28 | 26 | 24 | 22
104 | 37 | 35 | 33 | 31 | 29 | 27 | 25 | 24
106 | 38 | 36 | 34 | 32 | 30 | 28 | 27 | 25
108 | 39 | 37 | 35 | 33 | 31 | 29 | 28 | 26
| | | | | | | |
110 | 40 | 38 | 36 | 34 | 32 | 30 | 29 | 27
112 | 41 | 39 | 37 | 35 | 33 | 31 | 30 | 28
114 | 41 | 40 | 38 | 36 | 34 | 32 | 31 | 29
116 | 42 | 40 | 38 | 37 | 35 | 33 | 31 | 30
118 | 43 | 41 | 39 | 37 | 36 | 34 | 32 | 31
| | | | | | | |
120 | 44 | 42 | 40 | 38 | 38 | 35 | 33 | 31
122 | 44 | 42 | 41 | 39 | 37 | 36 | 34 | 32
124 | 45 | 43 | 41 | 40 | 38 | 36 | 35 | 33
126 | 46 | 44 | 42 | 40 | 39 | 37 | 35 | 34
128 | 46 | 44 | 43 | 41 | 39 | 38 | 36 | 34
| | | | | | | |
130 | 47 | 45 | 43 | 42 | 40 | 38 | 37 | 35
132 | 47 | 46 | 44 | 42 | 41 | 39 | 37 | 36
134 | 48 | 46 | 44 | 43 | 41 | 40 | 38 | 36
136 | 48 | 47 | 45 | 43 | 42 | 40 | 39 | 37
138 | 49 | 47 | 45 | 44 | 42 | 41 | 39 | 38
| | | | | | | |
140 | 49 | 48 | 46 | 44 | 43 | 41 | 40 | 38
------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
A relative humidity of between sixty-five and seventy per cent.
should be maintained in all living and sleeping rooms, if one is to
escape colds, catarrh, and possibly pneumonia. Some nervous disorders
are aggravated if not actually caused by the dryness of the air in
steam and other heated apartments during the time that the windows
are closed in cold weather. The vanity of the female sex is appealed
to with the statement that nothing is more essential to securing
and preserving a good complexion than the maintaining of a proper
humidity in one’s own room. Efficient and simple and inexpensive
humidifiers are now coming on the market. They are almost as
necessary to the health of a household as stoves and furnaces. Often
a right degree of moisture can be created by leaving clean water in
the bathtub and in all wash basins and sinks. One may be surprised
on taking humidity observations to find how quickly it increases in
rooms two or three removed from the bathroom after water is run into
the tub, and especially if the shower spray is turned on and allowed
to operate for a few minutes.
In cold weather we maintain the aridity of the Sahara Desert in
our hot, steam-heated apartments, with a relative humidity of less
than thirty per cent. Is it any wonder that when we step from this
atmosphere into the cold outside air, with a humidity of seventy per
cent., the violent change is productive of harm, particularly to the
delicate mucous membranes of the upper air passages, which have been
irritated and their powers of resistance weakened by the dryness
within? The period of pneumonia is the season of artificial heat in
living rooms—or, more properly speaking, the period of indoor desert
aridity.
=Save Fuel by Moistening Air.= If a room at 68° is not warm enough
for any healthy person it is because the humidity is too low, and
water should be evaporated to bring the moisture up to sixty-five or
seventy per cent. of saturation. Water instead of coal should be used
to make rooms comfortable when the temperature has reached 68°. Ten
to fifteen per cent. of fuel could be saved in the heating of places
of habitation if the air were properly and healthfully humidified.
The reason for this is that if the air is dry the heat passes through
it and warms it but little. Moisture stops the radiated heat that
would be lost, absorbs it, and holds it at the place where it is
needed. It has precisely the same effect as a soft wool blanket
wrapped about the body of each person. The dry air permits such a
rapid evaporation from the human body that one may actually feel
colder with a dry air heated to 75° than in a moist air at 66°
or 68°. Water is cheaper than coal, and in this matter much more
healthful.
The cooling effect produced by a draught does not necessarily arise
from the wind being cooler, for it may be actually warmer, but arises
from the rapid evaporation it causes on the surface of the skin.
Vapor of water forms a blanket about the earth and prevents it from
scorching during the day and freezing during the night.
=How to Forecast Weather with Only an Aneroid Barometer.= No one
except an expert observer should use the mercurial barometer. The
aneroid will answer as well for the purpose of forecasting from a
single instrument; it is cheaper and less complicated. First learn
your elevation above sea level; then add to the observed reading of
your instrument .10 for each one hundred feet elevation. Note the
fall or rise and the direction of the wind and with the aid of the
table on page 76 highly satisfactory forecasts may be made by any
intelligent person. Skill will come with practice. Write down your
forecasts each day as you make them and the following day note in
a blank space left for the purpose the success or failure of your
effort. Thus will you profit by your mistakes.
As a rule winds from the east quadrants and falling barometer
indicate foul weather, and winds shifting to the west quadrants
indicate clearing and fair weather. The rapidity of the storm’s
approach and its severity are indicated by the rate and the amount in
the fall of the barometer. This applies to the Mississippi Valley and
eastward to the Atlantic Ocean. Conditions are different in the Rocky
Mountains, on the plateau of the mountains, and on the eastern Rocky
Mountain slope, where precipitation seldom begins until after the
barometer begins to rise after a fall, and the winds have shifted to
the northwest.
Keep in mind that storms are great atmospheric eddies drifting from
the west, with the winds blowing cyclonically toward the center; that
when your wind is northeast the center of the storm is southwest of
you; that when it is east the center is west; when it is south the
center is north; when it is southwest the center is northeast, and
when it is west or northwest the center is east of you.
===========+====================+====================================
WIND | BAROMETER REDUCED | CHARACTER OF WEATHER
DIRECTION | TO SEA LEVEL | INDICATED
-----------+--------------------+------------------------------------
SW. to NW. |30.10 to 30.20 and |Fair, with slight temperature
| steady. | changes, for 1 to 2 days.
SW. to NW. |30.10 to 30.20 and |Fair, followed within 2 days by
| rising rapidly. | rain.
SW. to NW. |30.20 and above and |Continued fair, with no decided
| stationary. | temperature change.
SW. to NW. |30.20 and above and |Slowly rising temperature and fair
| falling slowly. | for 2 days.
S. to SE. |30.10 to 30.20 and |Rain within 24 hours.
| falling slowly. |
S. to SE. |30.10 to 30.20 and |Wind increasing in force, with rain
| falling rapidly. | within 12 to 24 hours.
S. to SW. |30.00 or below and |Clearing within a few hours, and
| rising slowly. | fair for several days.
S. to E. |29.80 or below and |Severe storm imminent, followed,
| falling rapidly. | within 24 hours, by clearing, and
| | in winter by colder.
SE. to NE. |30.10 to 30.20 and |Rain in 12 to 18 hours.
| falling slowly. |
SE. to NE. |30.10 to 30.20 and |Increasing wind, and rain within
| falling rapidly. | 12 hours.
SE. to NE. |30.00 or below and |Rain will continue 1 to 2 days.
| falling slowly. |
SE. to NE. |30.00 or below and |Rain, with high wind, followed,
| falling rapidly. | within 36 hours, by clearing,
| | and in winter by colder.
E. to NE. |30.10 and above and |In summer, with light winds, rain
| falling slowly. | may not fall for several days.
| | In winter, rain within 24 hours.
E. to NE. |30.10 and above and |In summer, rain probable within
| falling rapidly. | 12 to 24 hours. In winter, rain
| | or snow, with increasing winds,
| | will often set in when the
| | barometer begins to fall and the
| | wind sets in from the NE.
E. to N. |29.80 or below and |Severe northeast gale and heavy
| falling rapidly. | precipitation; in winter, heavy
| | snow, followed by a cold wave.
Going to W.|29.80 or below and |Clearing and colder.
| rising rapidly. |
===========+====================+====================================
=Difference between Weight and Pressure of the Air.= Air at sea level
and at 32° temperature weighs one and one third ounces per cubic
foot. A room twenty by twenty by ten feet contains some 333 pounds of
air. The pressure of the air is a quite different thing. It is the
sum of the weights of all the cubic feet of air that are stacked up,
one on top of the other, clear to the top of the atmosphere. This is
why the higher one goes, the less the pressure of the air, because
there are a less number of cubic feet above. And then each cubic foot
weighs a slight fraction less than the one just beneath it because
the air has expanded. The room afore-mentioned sustains a pressure
of 5880 on its floor and a like pressure on its ceiling, and a half
of this pressure on each of the sides of the room. The room does not
collapse because the air exerts a like pressure on the outside of the
room and the two pressures are equal—one inward and the other outward.
[Illustration: FIG. 7.—Mercurial Barometer. The glass tube on right
is filled with mercury. With the thumb over the open end, it is
reversed so that its open end rests under the surface in a basin of
mercury on the left, and the mercury in the tube falls to _n_, at
which point it is sustained by pressure of the air on surface of the
mercury in the basin.]
=The Principle of the Barometer.= In 1643 some Florentine gardeners
found that they could pump water only thirty-three feet high. This
is because the entire volume of air, if it were compressed to the
density of water, would equal a covering around the earth of that
depth. When the gardeners first began to work the plungers in their
pump up and down they did not get water; it was necessary for them
first to pump out all the air in the pipe leading down to the water
in the well; then the water rose into the vacuum thus created, and
it rose to a height that just balanced the weight or pressure of the
whole body of air that rests upon the earth. Now, if the atmosphere
surrounding the earth could be reduced to the density of mercury
it would equal a covering only thirty inches deep; this is why
the mercury normally stands at thirty inches high in the vertical
vacuum tube of the barometer. (Figure 7.) In the complete barometer
a graduated scale is attached so as to measure the fluctuations in
the height of the mercury. If one were to ascend in a balloon it
would be found that the mercury would steadily fall with increasing
altitude, until at eighteen thousand feet one half of the atmosphere
would be left below and the instrument would read only fifteen
inches instead of thirty. In ascending to the top of the Washington
Monument, 555 feet, the pressure of the air decreases over one half
inch.
The barometer rises and falls with the passage of storms because wind
movement displaces air and causes it to accumulate at some places
and become deficient at others, but in order to compare barometers
exposed at many different elevations with the view of determining the
geographic position of storm centers—of cyclones and anti-cyclones—it
is necessary to reduce all barometric readings to sea level.
=Weather Records Turn the Scales of Justice.= How trivial the
incident that may change the whole course of a lifetime and lead to
peace and happiness or to discord and sorrow! Likewise the parting of
the clouds and the coming through of the sunshine, or the moment of
the beginning of rainfall, or the amount of rain that falls within
a given time, or the direction of the wind, or the velocity of the
wind, or the temperature of the air, or the depth of the snowfall
literally thousands of times has furnished the evidence in courts of
law that has turned the scales of justice in civil suits involving
large sums of money, and in criminal cases where a prison sentence or
the hangman’s noose threatened the defendant.
For illustration let us say that a ship breaks from its mooring,
crashes into another ship in the harbor and sinks it. If the force of
the storm is no greater than has previously occurred in that harbor,
the first ship is liable for the loss of the second ship. But if the
automatically recording instruments of the Weather Bureau show that
at that time the velocity of the wind was greater than ever had been
known before, then the loss is due to “an act of God” and the ship
that broke her mooring is not liable for damages to the ship that was
sunk, provided proper provision was made for such velocity of wind as
reasonably might be expected to occur with the passage of a storm.
To cite a case that actually occurred: A railroad company was sued
for the loss of a million dollars’ worth of lumber that was burned,
as alleged, by sparks from one of its locomotives. Here came in the
wind records of the Government and proved that at the time of the
starting of the fire the wind was steadily and forcefully blowing in
a direction opposite to what would carry the sparks to the lumber,
and the company was protected against an unjust verdict.
Again heavy rain fell in excess of the capacity of the sewers of a
city to carry away the water, and private property was damaged by
the flood. In this case the city was compelled to pay for the damage
to property, because the records of the Weather Bureau showed that
previous rainfalls had been of equal or greater amount in the same
period of time, and the city should have constructed its sewers of
sufficient capacity to carry away such precipitation as experience
showed was liable to occur.
The writer was once an expert witness in what then was a famous case.
The defendant, a young and handsome woman previously of unimpeachable
character, was being sued for divorce. Two witnesses swore that they
had seen her come to an open window, facing south, at seven o’clock
in the morning, in a house in which she should not have been, stand
for several minutes looking into the garden upon which the window
faced, clad only in her night robe. Unfortunately the woman was not
able to establish a satisfactory alibi for the morning in question,
and she stood facing a terrible calamity with no power to establish
her innocence. Her accusers had given as a reason why she stood so
long at the open window that the morning was warm and balmy. But,
fortunately for the innocent woman, the weather records came to her
defense when her case seemed hopeless and her life was about to be
blighted with a scandal from which she never would be able to free
herself, and proved that at the very time when she was supposed to
have been standing in the open window a torrential rain was falling
and a wind of fifty miles per hour was beating upon the outside of
the window panes. The woman was acquitted and one of the witnesses
spent several hundred balmy mornings behind prison bars.
At another time the writer came into a case where a robber had
shot and killed a citizen who surprised him in the committing of
his crime. The robber was on trial for murder and his lawyers were
attempting to clear him by the introduction of evidence to prove that
the day was so foggy that the State’s witnesses had blundered and
seized the wrong man when they chased the murderer around a corner.
The weather expert destroyed the only evidence that tended to raise
a doubt in the mind of the jury as to the man’s guilt, by testifying
that fog could come to the surface of the earth only when the air
was abnormally light and the wind calm or only gentle; while at the
time of the murder the barometer was unusually high and the wind
brisk. Here again the meteorological records aided in vindicating the
right, and secured the conviction and execution of a brutal murderer.
A remarkable case was that in which a tramp was being tried for the
murder of a miserly old woman who was believed to carry a large
amount of money about her person. The tramp came to her door and
asked for food. She took him in and fed him and soon thereafter
he was seen hastily to leave the house. An hour after he had gone
the woman was found murdered and her clothing rifled. The tramp
was overtaken, found to have a large amount of money of small
denominations in his pockets, indicted, and placed on trial. The
principal witness for the State was a man who was repairing a frozen
water pipe in a trench by the side of the house opposite to that by
which the tramp entered and left. He saw the blow struck, ran in
fear to his home, and then informed the police. In explaining how he
came to see the criminal act, he testified that he climbed out of
the trench to get a drink from a bucket standing near by, and as he
raised the bucket his eye came in line with a window of the house,
through which he witnessed the murder. The case seemed clear against
the tramp, as other witnesses had seen him enter and leave the house
and positively recognized him. Just here his lawyer asked the trench
digger how long the water bucket had been sitting by the side of
the trench. The latter said it had been there from 7 o’clock until
10. Then the weather records came in to confound the falsifier and
to vindicate innocence, for the automatic tracing of the pen that
records every movement of the temperature proved that the temperature
had not been above zero any time during the three hours that the
bucket had been exposed and that it contained a solid chunk of ice
if it contained anything. The trench digger then confessed that he
himself was the murderer. He had seen the tramp enter and leave and
thought it a favorable opportunity to commit the crime and put the
evidence on another.
CHAPTER VII
FROST
There is nothing in the study of the atmosphere that so intimately
concerns the horticulturist and the gardener as knowledge of the
conditions under which frost forms, and the methods that may be
pursued to gain immunity from its disastrous effects, or to lessen
the loss.
Frost does not necessarily form from air that has fallen to the
freezing point, as many suppose. On the contrary, the air ten feet
or less above the vegetation may be several degrees above freezing
when there is a heavy and destructive frost upon vegetation. The fact
is that vegetation radiates heat towards a clear sky faster than
does the air and may fall to the freezing point or below; while the
air, except the molecules actually in contact with the vegetation,
is considerably warmer. Frost is not frozen dew. The water vapor
is precipitated, or rather congealed, upon the vegetation without
passing through the liquid state at all. Frost is spoken of as light,
heavy, and killing. Tomato plants are killed by only a light touch of
frost, while fruit blossoms will stand several degrees of cold below
freezing. Therefore the tomato grower would consider as killing a
frost that to the fruit grower would only appear as light.
The radiation of heat from the earth is continuous both day and night
when there are no clouds to obstruct the passage of the heat rays.
The amount received from the sun during the day is greater than the
loss by radiation from the earth and the temperature of the air
rises. After the setting of the sun the radiation of the earth goes
on but there is no incoming heat from the sun to offset the loss and
the temperature of the air falls. As previously stated, the soil
and vegetation radiate faster than the air and the air in immediate
contact with the soil is cooled by conduction to it. Thus over a
level plain on a clear calm night there is found a relatively thin
layer of cold air near the ground, which increases in temperature
up to two hundred or three hundred feet, or which may be only five
or ten feet deep. Over sloping ground the force of gravity tends to
cause this thin surface layer of cold air to move down the slope and
to gather in depressions in somewhat the same manner as water would
move. Such movement is called Air Drainage. Of course this air is
slowly gaining heat by compression as it passes to lower levels, but
it is hugging closely to the cold earth and losing by conduction much
or all that it thus gains by compression.
After a study of the contour of the region with respect to air
drainage the writer purchased a considerable tract of land near
Rockville, Montgomery County, Maryland, and planted extensive
orchards thereon, with the result of harvesting nine successful crops
of fruit in a period of ten years after the trees became large enough
to bear. With the composition and the surface covering of the soil
the same, the low places in a field are always the ones that suffer
most when frost is possible. Figure 8 shows a minimum temperature
of 25° to have occurred at the base of a steep hillside when on
the higher ground at an elevation of but fifty feet the lowest
temperature was 44°, and at two hundred and twenty-five feet up the
mountainside the minimum was 52°.
[Illustration: FIG. 8.—Continuous records of the temperature from 4
P.M. to 9 A.M. at the base and at different heights above the base of
a steep hillside, showing the great differences in temperature that
sometimes develop on a clear, still night. Although the temperature
at the base was low enough to cause considerable damage to fruit, the
lowest temperature 225 feet above on the slope was only 51°. Note
that the duration of the lowest temperature was much shorter on the
hillside than at the base.—_Weather Bureau._]
In selecting a location for an orchard it is not so much a problem of
elevation above sea level as elevation above the surrounding region.
The direction in which the slope faces makes little difference. The
prime consideration is to get sufficient air drainage to gain the
greatest protection against frost without selecting land with such a
steep slope as to furnish excessive soil drainage and which would be
difficult to cultivate and move about upon in the spraying of trees
and in the picking of fruit. In the Maryland orchard the elevation
was only five hundred feet above sea level and only about two hundred
feet above the surrounding region, and the slope was so gradual as
almost to be imperceptible to one passing over it.
After nightfall the air on mountain peaks and on hills and ridges
soon becomes cooler than the air at the same elevation out over the
open valley, due to contact with the elevated earth, which radiates
heat and cools faster than the air.
Water vapor has a great capacity for heat. It is the most effective
of the various gases present in the atmosphere in obstructing
radiation of heat from the earth, as well as in absorbing incoming
radiation from the sun. The night temperature, therefore, falls
more slowly when the relative humidity is high than when it is low,
that is to say, when the air is nearer saturation, or nearer its
dew point. Drops of water that collect on the outside of a pitcher
of ice water on a warm day are formed through the chilling of the
air in contact with the pitcher; they begin to form as soon as the
temperature of the pitcher reaches the dew point of the air, which
temperature varies in accordance with the amount of water vapor
present in the air at the time. After sundown the temperature of
exposed objects falls, of some faster than others, depending on
their capacities for radiation. Vegetation radiates freely and often
falls to the dew point of the air, at which time dew begins to
form on it and continues to be deposited as long as the temperature
remains above freezing. Now, here carefully note that if the dew
point is above 32° the condensation of water vapor in the form of
dew liberates latent heat, which usually will be sufficient to check
the fall of temperature and prevent the formation of frost. If the
dew point of the air is 32° or lower frost forms. If the dew point
is very low the temperature may fall low enough to cause much damage
without the formation of any frost. As an example, if the dew point
be 20° and the temperature falls to 24° much damage might be done to
growing crops and no frost appear. This phenomenon is called black
frost; it seldom occurs. From the foregoing it might be assumed
that the possibilities of frost might safely be forecast from an
observation to determine the relative humidity taken early in the
evening, but unfortunately experience has shown that reliance cannot
be placed in such method of forecasting, as the humid air of early
evening may be displaced by much drier air before the hour of minimum
temperature the next morning.
One of the best locations to gain immunity from frost at the
critical period of plant growth is immediately to the leeward of a
considerable body of water. Wind blowing from a large body of water
is always heavily laden with moisture, which decreases the rate of
radiation both day and night, but especially during the period of
cold in the early morning when frost is liable to occur. Such winds,
largely affected by the temperature of the water over which they have
passed, modify the temperatures of both day and night.
The all-important condition for the formation of frost is an
atmosphere already cool, with a gentle northwest wind and a clear
sky, which condition, with more or less coolness, always accompanies
the high barometric areas that follow the low-pressure areas of
warmth, cloudiness, and moisture.
At an expense of two millions of dollars per annum the Government
maintains some two hundred observation stations of the Weather
Bureau, and twice daily telegraphs observations to all the large
cities of the nation, but unfortunately in many cases these are not
published for the benefit of the people who could make valuable use
of them. The Bureau’s own deductions from these observations, in the
form of forecasts and warnings, are extremely valuable, but an even
greater service could be rendered the public by neatly lithographing
an evening weather map and mailing it from all large cities each
night, so that every intelligent person whose business is affected
by the weather could, through a study of the chapter on Forecasting
in this book, judge for himself as to the effect that the coming
weather may have on his particular interests. One could then watch
the movements of the high barometric areas and the low areas and
become weatherwise himself, and he who studied these charts the most
diligently would have an advantage over less progressive competitors.
Evaporation goes on at all temperatures, even below freezing and from
solid ice, its rate, of course, being diminished by low temperatures.
At times, in spring or fall, the temperature of the air over rivers,
when there is little wind, falls so far below the temperature of
the water that the water vapor rising from the river by evaporation
is quickly condensed in the form of fog, which may cover a part or
all of the low contiguous land, checking radiation and preventing a
further fall in temperature.
In valleys near the ocean, fog sometimes drifts in from the water
when frost is imminent and prevents its formation. On nights with
fog, contrary to the usual condition, the hillsides are always colder
than the lowlands, unless the fog extends high enough to cover them.
In 1891-1894 the writer, in studying the conditions under which
frost forms on the cranberry bogs of Wisconsin, was impressed with
the fact that the occurrence of frost on a given field depended as
much on the character of the surface and its covering as it did on
the temperature of the air a few feet above, one place receiving
an injurious frost, another a light frost, and still another none
at all, while each had the same conditions as to temperature, wind
velocity and direction, and all were at the same elevation, so that
the differences could not be accounted for by air drainage.
In one case the marsh was cleanly cultivated and covered with sand,
in another there was clean cultivation but no sand, and in still
another case there was a thick growth of vegetation. As the result
of a long series of observations conducted by Professor H. J. Cox,
working under the directions of the writer, minimum thermometers were
placed among the vines over newly sanded surfaces in two marshes,
one at Cranmoor and one at Mather, Wisconsin. The locations selected
for this inquiry represented the best results that could be secured
from sanding, draining, and cultivating. Comparison was made at each
marsh between the readings taken close to the vines of the clean part
of the marsh and those taken close to the surface over the unsanded
peat bog. The average lowest night temperature over the sand for the
four months was 5.9° higher than over the peat at Cranmoor, and 4.2°
at Mather. On one night the minimum over the surface at Cranmoor was
12° higher than over the peat, while at Mather a difference of nine
degrees was recorded on another night.
Through cultivation the marsh may be kept free from weeds, moss,
or other rank growth, thus permitting the sun’s rays to reach the
soil and increase its temperature during the day, while a growth of
thick vegetation screens the soil from the sun’s rays, and there is
consequently less heat in the latter soil to be given out during
the hours of low temperature at night. Drainage lowers the specific
heat of the soil and decreases the cooling effect of evaporation.
Therefore, under sunshine, the dry soil becomes warmer than the wet
and, whether or not it has a greater quantity of heat to give off
at night, it has a higher temperature and therefore radiates more
freely to the air above. A covering of sand likewise lowers the
specific heat of the surface and thereby causes it to gain a higher
temperature during the day than an unsanded surface receiving the
same solar rays. It therefore radiates more rapidly at the critical
time when heat is needed to prevent the temperature of vegetation
from falling to the freezing point and gaining a deposit of frost.
[Illustration: FIG. 9.—Continuous records of the temperature 5
feet and 35 feet above ground on a tower in a pear orchard. Note
the large difference in temperature at the two levels before the
orchard heaters were lighted at 4 A.M. By 5 A.M. the temperature
was practically the same at the two levels, showing that the heat
from the burning oil had been nearly all expended in raising the
temperature of the air within 35 feet of the ground. This point is
further illustrated by the fact that at 5 A.M. when most of the
heaters were extinguished, the temperature at the 5-foot level fell
rapidly, while it remained practically stationary at the 35-foot
level.—_Weather Bureau._]
In many orchards in the Rocky Mountain States, where fruit growing is
highly profitable and the injury from frost more than probable every
year, an extensive use is made of oil and other fuel-burning heaters
between the rows of trees. Those who wish further information with
regard to this matter should send to the Weather Bureau, Washington,
D. C., for Farmers’ Bulletin No. 1096. At first thought it would
seem that heat so applied would be blown away or instantly escape
upward. But on frosty nights there is not much wind; if there is,
there is little danger from frost. And then, as previously stated,
on such nights there is what is called temperature inversion, and
the temperature actually rises with the first few feet of ascent,
and the heated air soon reaches air of its own temperature, when no
further ascent occurs. When the air forty feet from the ground is
ten degrees warmer than it is around and in contact with vegetation,
as often occurs on frosty nights, the heat from the fires is nearly
all expended in raising the temperature of the air within this forty
feet. Figure 9 furnishes the result of an experiment illustrating the
correctness of the foregoing theory.
[Illustration: FIG. 10.—Average dates of last killing frost in
spring.]
[Illustration: FIG. 11.—Average dates of first killing frost in fall.]
Figures 10 and 11 show the average dates of the last killing frost in
spring, and of the first killing frost in fall.
CHAPTER VIII
WIND AND PRESSURE OF THE GLOBE
CAUSE OF LOCAL WINDS AND OF GENERAL CIRCULATION
=General Circulation.= Differences in temperature, changing the
specific gravity of the air, are the cause of the general circulation
of the atmosphere about the earth, modified by the rotation of the
earth; likewise the local circulation between land and water is
caused by the different quantities of heat radiated by the two widely
differing forms of matter, each attaining to a different temperature
under the influence of the same solar radiation; and the inflow of
winds to the cyclone and the outflow from the anti-cyclone are due to
the same forces that cause the general and the local circulations.
If there were no difference in temperature between the equator and
the poles the atmosphere would soon adjust itself in accordance with
the laws of gravity, modified by the centrifugal force developed from
the rotation of the earth, and the atmosphere forever would be at
rest relative to the earth, moving with it as if it were a part of
the solid sphere throughout its diurnal rotation on its axis and its
annual movement about the sun. But there is a decided difference in
temperature between the equator and the poles and between land and
water surfaces; hence a general circulation, modified and distorted
by numerous local movements, which, in turn, may be modified by the
height of hills and mountains and the direction of their trend.
[Illustration: FIG. 12.—Trade wind circulation and reason for belts
of high pressure at latitudes 30° N. and S. that extend around globe
as shown by Figure 13.]
Let us trace a current of air through its course as shown in
Figure 12 and the reason for the blowing of the trade winds will
be apparent, as will the reason for the location of a belt of high
pressure at latitudes 30° north and south encircling the globe. At
the equator there is a belt of calms. Here the air gently ascends
under the intense heat of vertical sunshine. It is humid, for
there is much water surface in the region of the equator, and the
air carries vast quantities of water vapor aloft, later to be
precipitated as torrential rains in the Tropical Zone, as the air
cools by expansion in its ascent. This air expands or bulges upward
and overflows aloft northward and southward, causing low air pressure
at the equator, because of the quantity of air moved to other
latitudes, which more than compensates for the amount banked up over
the equator by the centrifugal force of the earth’s rotation.
[Illustration: CHART 1.—HIGH AND LOW CENTERS OF ACTION AND PREVAILING
WINDS OF THE GLOBE FOR JULY (Buchan).]
Since air, passing away from the equator, must pass successively
over parallels of latitude having less easterly velocity than that
with which it started its journey, it runs ahead of the earth, and,
relative to the surface of the earth, has a direction from the
southwest north of the equator, and from the northwest south of the
equator. Our current was divided at an altitude probably of six miles
above the equator, one half following the northern and the other half
the southern circuit. It was cooled by elevation and by radiation
outward to space and as a result gained in weight and gradually
descended, reaching the earth at about latitudes 30° north and south,
and causing an accumulation of air at those latitudes and the belt
of high pressure that irregularly surrounds the earth. In descending
in the belt the air breaks up into a number of anti-cyclonic systems,
sub-permanent highs or Centers of Action, which have so much to do
with initiating the migratory Highs and Lows that create the weather
of the earth, as will be fully explained in the Chapter on Weather
Forecasting. The intensity of these centers of action is modified and
their geographic positions shifted with change of season. (See Charts
1 and 2.)
[Illustration: CHART 2.—HIGH AND LOW CENTERS OF ACTION AND PREVAILING
WINDS OF THE GLOBE FOR JANUARY (Buchan).]
=Trade Winds.= But to return to the current that we left as it
divided above the equator (Figure 12) and descended on an inclined
plane to latitudes 30° north and south. It is cooler and dryer and
heavier than when it started to ascend and it has lost the thousand
miles per hour and more easterly velocity that it had at the equator
and now only has the velocity that belongs to latitude 30°; therefore
as it moves toward the equator from either side it lags behind
latitudes whose easterly velocity is greater, and it takes up a
direction partly toward the west, which, relative to the earth, makes
it a northeast wind in the Northern Hemisphere and a southeast wind
in the Southern Hemisphere. And thus is established a circulation the
lower part of which is known as the “trade winds.” (Figure 13.)
Navigators profit largely by availing themselves of the west winds
in the middle latitudes and of the east winds in the tropics. To
the daring and persistence of Columbus, and the force and constancy
of the trade winds which blew him westward, we owe the discovery of
America.
[Illustration: FIG. 13.—Average surface winds and pressure of the
globe.]
=Winds of Middle Latitudes.= Now study Figure 12 and associate the
information it conveys with that of Figure 13, and observe that from
the two belts of high pressure the air is pushed outward on both
sides. In each case it starts as a true north or south wind, but, due
to the rotation of the earth, is always and everywhere deflected to
the right in the Northern Hemisphere and to the left in the Southern
Hemisphere, and this deflection increases until what started as a
poleward wind in the middle latitudes soon becomes almost a due
west wind. In this region of west winds cyclonic storms are more
frequent than in any other part of the globe. Now get clear in the
mind the fact that no matter what may be the direction of the wind
inside a cyclonic or anti-cyclonic whirl (often one thousand miles in
diameter), the whirl is carried toward the east by the general drift
from the west of the winds between latitudes 30° and 60°, and toward
the west in the region of the trade winds.
=Low Barometer at the Poles.= Even though the air is contracted and
rendered denser by the great cold of the Arctic regions, the pressure
remains low because of the quantity of air driven equatorward by
the centrifugal force both of the earth and of the winds themselves
as they rim ahead of the earth and encircle the globe in the middle
latitudes.
=Data too Meager to Show Full Circulation Aloft of the Atmosphere
of the Globe.= Many charts have been published in the attempt to
show how the atmosphere circulates below and aloft through the whole
world. They only have speculative value, as our knowledge is too
limited to permit us to unravel the complexities of all the upper
movements.
=Rain Winds of the Tropics.= The trade winds, mostly moving over
water surfaces, are laden with moisture, but, gaining temperature as
they move towards the equator, their capacity to hold water vapor
steadily increases, and therefore they do not become rain winds
unless forced to ascend by the interposition of mountains, or until
cooled by ascension at the equator. In no part of the world does the
air rise so steadily and in such great volume as in the equatorial
belt of calms and low pressure. Hence this is the region of greatest
rainfall. During the two rainy seasons, spring and fall, the day
opens clear; near midday the clouds gather and rain falls early in
the afternoon; after which it quickly clears. This is so regular
a program that one lays his plans accordingly. There is almost no
rain in December and January; this is because the belt of calms and
the inflowing trade winds move northward and southward with the
migrations of the sun, and in December and January, the sun being
far south, the northern trades, with their rainless winds, cover
the equator and the region formerly occupied by the belt of calms.
In midsummer the sun is far north and then the southern trades move
up and give dryness to the equator. In the northern trades, of the
moderate amount of rain that falls, the greater quantity falls in
summer; in the southern trades the order is reversed.
=Rain of the High-Pressure Belts and of the Regions of West Winds.=
In the high-pressure belts the air is settling down and gaining heat
by compression and there is not much horizontal movement. These are,
therefore, regions of but little rainfall, and all the great deserts
occur in or near them. The belts of west winds are the regions of
most frequent cyclonic activities. Here the rainfall is quite equally
distributed throughout the year and is the result of the mixing of
the air by storms and its cooling by expansion as it is carried
upward in the migrating whirl.
=Circulation between Continents and Oceans.= In Chapter X, under the
sub-caption “Influence of Continents and Oceans on Climate”, the
circulation between them is well explained. In general the movement
is from the continent to the oceans in winter, with the air flowing
inward aloft to settle down and take the place of that which passes
out to sea. In summer the directions are reversed.
=Daily Variation in Coastal Winds.= In summer, when there are no
forceful storm winds blowing steadily from one direction for several
hours at a time, there will daily spring up gentle to fresh winds
from the surface of oceans and large lakes to the land, because of
the influence of the sun’s rays in heating the land to a higher
temperature than it does the water. These winds will not appear on
cloudy days and they will extend inland but a few miles.
=Monsoon Winds.= During winter the vast continent of Eurasia (Europe
and Asia) cools to such an extremely low temperature as to develop a
High, or center of action, of great energy and extent, which drives
a steady dry monsoon into the Indian Ocean and China Sea. Unlike the
trade winds, these winds reverse their direction in the summer; then
the intense heat of the continent to the north develops an extensive
Low, which draws the ocean winds inland and extends its influence so
far south as to attract the southeast trade winds of the Southern
Hemisphere and, turning them so that they flow from the southwest,
continue them far into the interior of Asia. Since the summer monsoon
blows from a tropical sea it comes heavily laden with water vapor
and as it rises over the mountains of the great Himalayan system
copious rains are precipitated. In Australia, Africa, South America,
and some parts of the North American continent monsoon influence in
various degrees is felt, but in no place is the monsoon so important
as in the countries bordering the Indian Ocean. (Charts 15 and 16.)
=Föhn Winds.= This is a hot wind that sometimes blows down a mountain
side in the Alps. In the Rocky Mountains it is called the Chinook
Wind. It is caused by moisture-laden air being drawn over a high
mountain so quickly that the heat liberated in condensation does not
have time to escape by radiation. The air cools by expansion as it
ascends on the west side of the mountain, but it gains this all back
by compression as it descends, and it has added to its temperature
much of the heat of condensation. It is dry and greedily evaporates
snow from the ground in winter, clearing off a deep covering within a
few hours.
[Illustration: FIG. 14.—How winds would blow into a cyclone on a
non-rotating earth.]
=How Winds Are Deflected by Earth’s Rotation.= Every free-moving
thing, whether wind or projectile, is deflected to the right of
its initial direction by the rotation of the earth in the Northern
Hemisphere and to the left in the Southern Hemisphere, unless the
object be moving exactly along the line of the equator. Winds moving
inward to a Low are therefore so deflected as to cause the cyclone
to gyrate in a direction contrary to the movements of the hands of
a watch. In an anti-cyclone the movement is with the watch. In the
Southern Hemisphere these wind directions are reversed.
Figure 14 gives an illustration of what would be the movement of
air inward to a cyclone on a non-rotating earth. The winds would
blow along radial lines for a time, but, converging together as they
began to ascend, they doubtless would soon set up a gyration about
the center. On a non-rotating earth this gyration would be clockwise
as often as it would be anti-clockwise, but on a rotating earth the
gyration can be in but one direction. (Figure 15.) Even tornadoes,
whose diameters of rotation are never but a few hundred feet, obey
this law. In little dust whirls, in which the movements of air may
be comprehended from the motion of the trash that is whirled about
and which are tornadoes in miniature, the direction of gyration may
be either way. They are too small for the deflecting force to be
appreciable, and it may be that the tornado is forced to take its
direction of gyration from the cyclone in whose southeast quarter it
has its origin.
[Illustration: FIG. 15.—Deflection of wind due to earth’s rotation.]
=How Wind Velocity Increases with Altitude.= Figure 16 shows how
the velocity of the wind increases with elevation in the free air
up to five thousand meters (about three miles). The average for the
year, for the summer and for the winter, is given. It increases most
rapidly up to six hundred meters in summer and up to eight hundred
meters in winter. From these two heights there is a steady and
pronounced slowing down of the wind up to one thousand meters; after
which it increases up to five thousand meters, and how far beyond we
know not. In winter there is a singular acceleration of velocity in
the stratum between two thousand and twenty-five hundred meters and
then no increase for the next five hundred meters; after which there
is a uniform and steady gain up to five thousand meters. Starting at
two hundred and seventy meters, the average velocity for the year is
3½ meters per second, or about 7¼ miles per hour. At five thousand
meters altitude the average for the year is 11¼ meters per second, or
about 27 miles per hour.
[Illustration: FIG. 16.—Annual, summer, and winter wind velocities,
with altitude. 1, 1850 feet; 2, 2467 feet; 3, 3083 feet; 4, 15,417
feet.]
CHAPTER IX
HOW TO FORECAST FROM THE DAILY WEATHER MAP
IT IS NOT DIFFICULT TO BECOME WEATHERWISE AND THEREBY TO GAIN
ADVANTAGES IN HEALTH, HAPPINESS, AND BUSINESS
The person who will take the time to learn to interpret the daily
weather map has a decided advantage over those who are less
progressive. The maps may be secured by applying to any Weather
Bureau station. Many members of commercial associations, having the
advantage of seeing the large glass weather map that is made each
morning by an observer of the Weather Bureau and displayed on the
floor of the association, have become expert weather forecasters. The
value of the principal crops of the country is largely influenced
by the weather, as are the prices of transportation and industrial
stock; and there is hardly a business that directly or indirectly is
not influenced by the prospects of coming weather.
Vessel masters, long accustomed to forecast the near approach of
storms from the action of their “glass” (barometer), now have learned
that the daily weather map shows them at a glance the height of not
one but of many barometers scattered over a wide area and read at the
same moment of time. They see that the direction and the force of the
wind are the results of differences in air pressure; that the air
flows from a region where the air pressure is great, that is to say,
where the barometers are high, towards a region where the pressure is
less, or where the barometers are low; and that the velocity of the
wind will be in proportion to the difference in the pressure of the
air. Coast-wise and lake shipping are therefore not only affected by
the forecasts made by the Weather Bureau but by the forecast made by
the masters themselves when they can get access to the daily weather
map. Their own lives and the lives and property of others are in
their keeping. But the great mass of intelligent people have no idea
of the methods employed in the making of the weather map and of the
many and widely diversified uses to which a study of its data would
lead.
One first must learn of the simple manner in which the map is
constructed; then, by a comparison of the map each day with the
preceding chart, he soon will be able to detect the beginning of
storms, trace them through their various migrations as they cross
the continent and finally pass out to sea, bidding them bon voyage
as they go in quest of a more eastern continent on which to bestow
their blessings of rain and active, purified air; or, as it often may
happen, shuddering for the fate of the mariner who is caught in their
fierce vortical whirls, and for the land areas that may be laid waste
by their gyrating force.
=How the Weather Map Is Made.= At 8 A.M. to-day Washington time,
which, by the way, is about seven o’clock at Chicago, six at Denver,
and five at San Francisco, the observers at some two hundred stations
in the United States and contiguous territory were taking their
observations and from carefully standardized instruments noting
the conditions of the atmosphere. By 8:20 A.M. the barometers at
each station have been reduced to sea level, that is to say, they
have been made to read what they would if they were located at the
level of the ocean. Thus differences in air pressure that are due to
differences in elevation are eliminated, so that they may not obscure
those due to storm conditions. Then, for purposes of brevity and
accuracy, the observations are reduced to cipher form, and each
filed at the local telegraph office. During the next thirty or forty
minutes the observations, with the right of way over all lines, are
speeding to their destinations, each station contributing its own
report, and receiving in return such observations from other stations
as it may require. The observations from all stations are received at
such important centers as Washington, New York, Chicago, and other
large cities having Weather Bureau stations, and from these centers
daily weather maps are printed and issued at 11 A.M. each day.
[Illustration: CHART 3.—WINTER STORM, DECEMBER 15, 1893, 8 A.M.
Black lines connect places having equal barometric pressure; arrows
point in direction wind is blowing; figures at end of arrows show
wind velocity, when it is more than light.
○ clear; ◓ partly cloudy; ● cloudy; R rain; S snow.
HIGH indicates center of anti-cyclone, or high-pressure area; LOW
indicates center of cyclone, or low-pressure area.
Large figures show average temperature in each quadrant of cyclone.]
Now turn to Chart 3. Heavy black lines (isobars, meaning equal
pressure) are drawn through places having the same barometric
reading. The readings are omitted from the printed Chart. By drawing
lines for each difference of one tenth of an inch, the high and the
low-pressure areas (called Highs and Lows) are soon inclosed in their
proper circles. These lines run in oval or circular form, indicating
that storms operate in the form of great atmospheric eddies; that
there are central places of attraction _towards_ which the air is
drawn if the disturbance be a low-pressure area, with its usual
accompaniments of warm, moist, and often rainy weather, and _from_
which the air is driven if it be a high-pressure area, with cool,
settled weather.
The word “High” is written inside the isobar marked 30.6, located
in southern Oregon, and the same word is written inside the isobar
marked 30.4, located on the South Atlantic coast, and also inside the
isobar 30.04, which traverses Nova Scotia. These are the regions of
great air pressure. The word “Low” is written at the center of the
area inclosed by the isobar 29.6, which is situated in the State of
Iowa. The latter is the region of least pressure. Sometimes there are
several such regions shown on the weather map.
=Why the Wind Blows.= Under the pull of gravity the atmosphere
presses downward and outward, thus causing it to flow from the
several regions of great pressure towards regions of less pressure.
Observe the arrows, which fly with the wind, and it will be seen how
generally this law is obeyed. The velocity with which the wind moves
from the High toward the Low depends on differences in air pressure,
modified in the lower stratum by the friction offered in passing over
surfaces of varying degrees of roughness, the speed being greater
over a water surface with the same difference in air pressure than
over a level unwooded prairie, and greater over the open prairie than
over an irregular wooded area. To illustrate:
If the barometer were 30.5 at Bismark, Dakota, and 29.5 at
Chicago, it would press upon the earth with a force of about seventy
pounds greater per square foot at the first place than at the second.
This difference in pressure would cause the air to flow from Bismark
towards Chicago so rapidly that after allowing for the resistance
due to friction on the earth there would remain a velocity of some
fifty miles per hour, and Lake Michigan would experience a severe
“Northwester”; and if the wind continued from the same direction for
twenty-four hours a mighty sea would beat upon the eastern shore of
the lake, and mariners and marine property would be at the mercy of a
destructive tempest unless the Weather Bureau forecaster were alert
and gave warning as soon as he saw such a juxtaposition of pressure
distribution in the process of formation.
We will give careful attention to this chart, for when its details
are understood, others will be easily read.
The chart shows a winter storm central in Iowa on December 15, 1893.
The word “Low” marks the storm center. It is the one place in all the
United States where the barometer reading is the lowest. The heavy
black lines, oval and nearly concentric, about the Low, show the
gradation of air pressure as it increases quite uniformly in all
directions from the center of the storm outward.
The arrows fly with the wind, and, as will be seen, almost without
exception are moving towards the Low, or storm center, clearly
demonstrating the effect of gravity in causing the air to flow from
the several regions marked “High”, where the air is abnormally heavy,
toward the Low, where the air is lighter. As the velocity of water
flowing down an inclined plane depends both upon the slope of the
plane and the roughness of its surface, so the velocity of the wind,
as it flows along the surface of the earth towards the storm center,
depends on the amount of the depression of the barometer at the
center and the resistance offered by surfaces of varying degrees of
roughness.
=Storms and Cold Waves Simply Great Eddies in the Atmosphere.= Now
picture in your mind that all the air inside the 30.2 isobar, as it
flows inward, is rotating about the Low in a direction contrary to
the movements of the hands of a watch, and you have a fair conception
of an immense atmospheric eddy. Have you ever watched the placid
waters of a deep-flowing brook and observed that where the waters
encountered a projecting rock little eddies formed and went spinning
down the stream? Well, our storms are somewhat similar eddies in the
atmosphere, more or less perfect, that are carried along by the
general easterly movement of the atmosphere in the middle latitudes
of both hemispheres. But they are not deep eddies; the Low marks the
center of an atmospheric circulation of vast horizontal extent as
compared with its thickness or extension in a vertical direction.
Thus a storm area extends from Washington, D. C., to Denver,
Colorado, and yet extends upward only about six miles. The whole disk
of whirling air, six miles thick and two thousand miles in diameter,
is called a cyclone, or low-pressure area. It is important that a
proper understanding be had of this fundamental idea, since the
weather experienced from day to day depends almost wholly upon the
movement of these migrating cyclones, or areas of low pressure, and
the anti-cyclones, or areas of high pressure.
The temperature readings are omitted from each station, but the
average temperature of each quadrant of the Low is shown by the
large black figures. The greatest difference in temperature is seen
to be between the southeast and the northwest sections. This is due
in part to the fact that in the southeast quadrant the air is drawn
northward from warmer latitudes, and in the northwest quadrant it is
drawn southward from colder latitudes, and to the further fact that
winds blowing into the west side of a Low have a downward component
of motion, and those blowing in on the front, or east side, have an
upward component.
One should gain a clear idea of the difference between the movements
of the air in the cyclone and the movement of the cyclone itself,
or its translation from place to place; how the wind must blow into
the front of the storm in a direction partly or wholly contrary to
the movement of the storm itself, and into the rear of the storm as
it passes away; how the wind increases in velocity as it spirally
gyrates about the center and approaches nearer and nearer the region
where it must ascend; how the higher layers of air move spirally away
from the center and thus cause an accumulation of air about and over
the outer periphery of the Low, which in turn presses downward and
impels the surface air inward. This whole complex system of motion
moves eastward. Think of the sun drifting in space, while at the
same time each of the planets maintains its respective orbit, and it
will help one to visualize the phenomena of a migrating cyclone or
anti-cyclone.
[Illustration: CHART 4.—WINTER STORM, DECEMBER 15, 1893, 8 P.M.
Black lines connect places having equal barometric pressure; red
lines connect places having equal temperature; arrows point in
direction wind is blowing; figures at end of arrows show wind
velocity when it is more than light.
○ clear; ◓ partly cloudy; ● cloudy; R rain; S snow.
HIGH indicates center of anti-cyclone, or high-pressure area; LOW
indicates center of cyclone, or low-pressure area.
Large figures show average temperature in each quadrant of cyclone.
Shading shows precipitation area of last 24 hours.]
Chart 4, constructed from observations taken twelve hours later,
shows that the Low has moved from central Iowa since 8 A.M., and is
now, at 8 P.M., central over the southern point of Lake Michigan.
The shaded portion of the chart shows that rain has fallen during
the past twelve hours throughout nearly the entire region covered
by the cyclone. This was due to the mixing of the air as the storm
progressed, to the cooling by expansion as the air ascended, to the
more rapid rotation about the storm center, because of the further
lowering of the barometer at the center of the disturbance since
the preceding chart was made, and especially to the more humid air
encountered as the storm moved eastward and came nearer to the supply
of moist winds,—the Atlantic Ocean.
[Illustration: CHART 5.—WINTER STORM, DECEMBER 16, 1893, 8 A.M.
Black lines connect places having equal barometric pressure; red
lines connect places having equal temperature; arrows point in
direction wind is blowing; figures at end of arrows show wind
velocity, when it is more than light.
○ clear; ◓ partly cloudy; ● cloudy; R rain; S snow.
HIGH indicates center of anti-cyclone, or high-pressure area; LOW
indicates center of cyclone, or low-pressure area.
Large figures show average temperature in each quadrant of cyclone.
Shading shows precipitation area of last 24 hours.]
On Chart 5 a line of arrows extends from the storm center westward
to Wyoming, where the storm originated. A small cross inclosed by
a circle marks its western extremity. Another cross located near
Cheyenne shows where the storm center was located twelve hours
after its origin. A third cross gives it location near Des Moines
twenty-four hours after it started eastward. It was here that we
began the study of this storm on Chart 3. A cross near Chicago
indicates the distance traveled by the center during the third twelve
hours, and Chart 5 shows its progress during the fourth twelve-hour
period. When the storm was central at Cheyenne the danger warnings
for mariners were displayed at all ports of the Great Lakes, as
the forecaster knew that in accordance with general laws the storm
must move toward the east. When it was centered at Chicago, danger
warnings were displayed on the Atlantic coast from North Carolina to
Maine, as it was known that long before the storm reached the ocean
the in-rush of wind toward the storm center would cause a dangerous
on-shore gale and the breaking of heavy seas on the shore line. All
craft that could be reached with the danger signals made safe in
port, except the great ocean liners, which are of such strength as
to safely withstand almost any storm. A special set of observations
ordered by the Washington office of the Weather Bureau from its
stations in the region of the storm, and well in advance of it, kept
the chief forecaster informed as to the progress of the cyclone,
and before the storm center reached the coast the danger signals
communicated to mariners the fact that the winds would soon shift to
northwest as the center of the disturbance passed out to sea.
The reader’s attention will now be directed to the red lines on Chart
5; they pass through places having the same temperature, but for
simplicity the readings of temperature, whereby these lines were
located, are omitted from the printed chart. Observe the line marked
40°; it passes across southern New England to western New York,
but when it reaches the center of the storm it encounters the cold
northwest winds blowing into the storm on its west side and is forced
southward to Texas.
Charts 3, 4, and 5 give a graphic history of one severe winter storm.
In summer such general storms do not often occur. They are frequent
in spring and fall, but of higher temperature and less severity than
in winter. In summer Lows drift sluggishly across the continent; the
barometer at the center of the cyclone is usually not more than two
to four tenths of an inch below the pressure of the Highs, and the
rain, instead of falling in a broad sheet, as shown by the shading of
charts 4 and 5, falls in numerous sporadic outbursts, each of which
is but a few square miles in area, their combined surfaces usually
covering only a part of the region over which passes the Low.
=Cold Waves and the Speed of Storm Movement.= Highs and Lows drift
across the continent from the west towards the east at the average
rate of about six hundred miles per day, or about thirty-seven miles
per hour in winter and twenty-two miles in summer, the first at
about the rate of an express train, and the second approximating
the speed of a freight. The Highs are attended by dry, cool, and
settled weather. By a vortical action at their centers they draw down
the cold air from great altitudes above the clouds. In winter, when
vortical action is vigorous, they may reach upward to an altitude of
seven miles. Air starting downward from this region has a temperature
of some 70° below zero. We know this from the records secured
by sending aloft free balloons carrying automatic thermometers.
(Chapters II and III.) This air heats by compression because in its
downward movement it is continually leaving more and more air above
it to exercise pressure upon it. It gains about twenty degrees with
each mile of descent, and if there were no other factors to the
problem it would be hot air when it reached the surface of the earth
instead of cold air. But early in its descent it gains such heat
as to melt and evaporate the ice spiculæ floating at the height of
the fleecy cirrus clouds; then it evaporates and clears away the
moist clouds lower down and finally creates such _diathermancy_ (the
capacity to transmit heat without absorption; see Chapter V) that the
heat lost by radiation to a clear sky causes what we call a “cold
wave”, and this notwithstanding the heat of compression.
The forecaster first observes a cold wave in the northern Rocky
Mountain region, in the form of an intense High. It will travel
southeastward to the center of the continent, and often to the Gulf
if it is preceded by an active Low that is located on a low latitude,
as the latter will draw southward the frosty air of the High; after
that the course of the storm will be more nearly eastward. Now
it is of rare occurrence that a cold wave gains entrance to any
considerable area of our territory without warning, but in the early
days of the Weather Bureau they too often reach Iowa, or States
farther east, without any notice whatever. It was then discovered
that a certain type of weather map preceded such failures of the
forecaster. One who is interested in gaining early knowledge of
the approach of a cold wave to the United States should watch not
only for the appearance of abnormally high barometer readings, from
the stations of the Canadian Northwest, or from Montana and North
Dakota, but especially for a crescent-shaped Low, with one horn of
the crescent touching Lake Superior and the other extending into the
middle Rocky Mountain region, at about Colorado. This Low will appear
to be an innocent affair; there may be a small secondary Low in each
end of the crescent, and no High of any importance in the northwest,
for which one ordinarily would look in anticipating a cold wave.
But when this crescent-shaped Low appears on the morning weather
map, a High of marked intensity invariably will develop with great
suddenness over Montana and North Dakota and bring a cold wave to the
Middle Mississippi Valley before the next morning, if the time of
year be winter.
Do not forget that the Low is as important as the High in causing a
cold wave, for the High that brings the cold air must follow in the
track of the Low and will be attracted by the latter in proportion
to its lowness, as indicated by the isobar inclosing the center of
the Low. A cold wave will reach the Gulf only if the preceding Low
originate in Texas; it will be confined to the Ohio Valley as the
limit of its southern influence if the preceding Low originate in
Colorado; and it will only skirt the northern border of the United
States and the Lake region if the Low begin in Montana.
More and more is man applying science to commerce and industry.
When the weather map, which was unknown but little more than half a
century ago, indicates the formation of a heavy body of cold air in
the extreme northwest, the chief official forecaster at Washington
is on the alert; he orders special observations every few hours
from the Weather Bureau stations directly within and well in advance
of the cold area, and as soon as he becomes satisfied that a cold
wave is on its way, the previously arranged system of disseminating
warnings is brought into action, and by telegraph, telephone, flags,
whistles, bulletins, and other agencies, the people in every city,
town and hamlet, and many in the stock and farming regions, are
notified of the advancing cold twelve to twenty-four hours before it
reaches them.
[Illustration: CHART 6.—COLD WAVE ZONES, MARCH TO NOVEMBER. AMOUNT OF
FALL AND VERIFYING LIMIT.]
Charts 6 and 7 show how the Weather Bureau defines a cold wave.
There must be a fall of sixteen degrees, eighteen degrees, or twenty
degrees within thirty-six hours and a certain degree of coldness
must be reached. The charts show that what is a cold wave in the Gulf
region is far from one in the northwest.
[Illustration: CHART 7.—COLD WAVE ZONES, DECEMBER, JANUARY, AND
FEBRUARY. AMOUNT OF FALL AND VERIFYING LIMIT.]
[Illustration: CHART 8.—LOWEST TEMPERATURES IN THE UNITED STATES,
1871-1913.]
Chart 8 shows the lowest temperatures experienced in the United
States since the founding of the Weather Bureau, 1871 to 1913. Note
the influence of the Pacific Ocean in forcing the zero line from
Arizona northward to British Columbia.
[Illustration: CHART 9.—NUMBER OF COLD WAVES, 1904-1914, INCLUSIVE.]
Chart 9 shows the number of times that a cold wave occurred at each
station of the Weather Bureau for a period of ten years. The number
is greater for northern New England than for the Red River of
the North Valley, because practically all the cold waves that cross
Minnesota reach New England; and the latter also receives fierce
boreal visitors that come to it from the Hudson Bay region lying
directly northeast, which do not visit any portion of Minnesota or
the region farther west. During the period not a single technical
cold wave occurred at the coast stations of California, Oregon,
or Washington, while Red Bluff and Sacramento were the only two
places in California west of the Sierras, and Roseburg, Oregon, the
only station west of the Cascade Range that had any, the numbers
being one, two, and five respectively. In the Florida peninsula
south of Jacksonville, Tampa had two, while none occurred at Miami.
Sometimes the temperature falls lower than that required for a cold
wave, but not within the period of twenty-four hours required by
the regulations. A notable case in point is the severe cold wave in
California in January, 1913, the lowest temperature ever observed
being recorded at San Diego on the 7th, when the minimum fell to 25°.
=Cold Waves Tempered by Great Lakes.= The severity of cold waves is
markedly modified by the Great Lakes, especially in the fall and the
first part of winter, before much of the water surface is covered
with ice and snow. Not only is the number of cold waves much less at
stations of the Lakes than at near-by places in the interior, but
there is a marked variation in the number that occur at the Lake
stations, depending upon which side of the lake and how close to the
water the station is located. The most striking differences are noted
in the Lake Michigan region, the number on the west shore being five
or six times as great as on the east side. Milwaukee shows a count of
forty-seven as compared with nine at Grand Haven. This lake influence
affects the entire Lower Michigan peninsula, but it is not so great
in the interior and eastern sections as along the west shore, Grand
Haven’s nine standing out against fourteen, fifteen, and twenty-three
for Grand Rapids, Detroit, and Port Huron. A similar condition is
noted in New York State; Buffalo, Rochester, and Oswego, near the
lake shore, had twenty, twenty-seven, and twenty-nine cold waves
respectively, while the interior stations of Ithaca, Binghamton, and
Syracuse had thirty-eight, forty-five, and fifty-two.
=Cold Waves Tempered by the Heat of Cities.= Another reason for
the lack of uniformity in the recorded number of cold waves in the
various sections of the country is the difference between city and
suburban temperatures. Stations located in small villages or in the
open land will show a greater number of recorded cold waves than
those located in large cities, where the heat stored up by pavements
and brick buildings during sunshine each day, and where the heat from
thousands of chimneys, and maybe millions of human beings, holds the
minimum temperature of night much above that of the free air in the
open country. Charles City, where the instruments have open country
exposure had sixty-five cold waves, which far exceeds the number
recorded at any other station in Iowa.
No matter how severe may be the cold wave that appears in the
northwest, it will not extend over Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and any
region south of them, unless the center of the High extends well over
the Rocky Mountain Divide. Otherwise it will come down the east slope
of the mountains and the cold will not cross them.
In the Lows the conditions of the air and its movements are exactly
the reverse of what they are in the Highs; the air is warmer and
moister, it is drawn spirally inward from all directions instead of
being forced outward as in the High, and it ascends as it approaches
the center of depression, sometimes causing rain or snow as it cools
by expansion during its ascent. While the air cools with ascent in
the Low at the same rate that it warms with descent in the High, the
earth experiences a general warming effect with the passage of the
Lows, because the air falls but little in temperature as it rises
before it reaches its dew point, and then there is a liberation of
the latent heat of condensation (see Chapter V); and what is more
important, there is formed a covering of clouds that checks or wholly
stops radiation outward from the lower air. However there are times
when the passage of Lows produces a cooling effect. This is when
abnormally hot weather has prevailed for some days; then the air may
be mixed, washed, and cooled by thunder-showers.
[Illustration: CHART 10.—STORM TRACKS FOR AUGUST FOR TEN YEARS.]
Highs and Lows alternately drift across the continent in periods of
about three days each. They are a part of the divine economy that
provides for the seedtime and the harvest, for, as previously stated,
the Lows draw the warm, vapor-bearing currents inland from the Gulf
and the ocean and cause them to deposit their moisture far to the
north and west. Four sevenths of all our storms come from the middle
or the north plateau regions of the Rocky Mountains, or at least
enter our field of observation from those regions, and pass from this
arid or sub-arid section of the continent easterly over the Lakes
and New England, producing but little rainfall. The greater part of
the remaining three sevenths are first observed in the arid regions
of our southwestern States; they always move northeastward and can be
depended on to give bountiful rainfall so soon as or a little before
they reach the Mississippi River. Some of them cross the Atlantic and
affect the continent of Europe. Charts 10 and 11 show the courses
of storms in this country, and where they originate, or are first
brought under the survey of our system of observation.
[Illustration: CHART 11.—STORM TRACKS FOR FEBRUARY FOR TEN YEARS.]
=West Indian Hurricanes.= A few of the most severe storms that touch
any portion of our continent originate in the West Indies and travel
in a northwesterly direction until they touch our Gulf or South
Atlantic coast, when, passing from the influence of the northeast
trade winds which carried them westward, they recurve and pass along
our eastern coast, usually with their centers offshore and following
the Gulf Stream. These violent atmospheric convulsions are usually
detected in the process of formation through the effectiveness of
the storm-warning service established by the writer during the
Spanish-American War, under the direction of the President, for
the purpose of giving warning to our fleet before the coming of a
hurricane. The President realized the great part played by storms in
many of the naval battles of the past, and it may be surmised that he
was more afraid of a West Indian hurricane than he was of the Spanish
Navy. But Cervera was beaten and the blockade was raised before the
hurricanes of 1898 began.
=Galveston Hurricane.= The new Weather Service, with a cordon of
stations down the Windward Islands and along the north coast of South
America, surrounding our fleet, and inaugurated as a war measure, so
demonstrated its value in locating and giving warning of the coming
of a hurricane soon after the end of the war that Congress continued
it as a permanent instrument of peace; and when the destructive
Galveston Hurricane occurred in 1900 it detected the storm at its
inception and so fully advised shipping of the storm’s movements that
not a vessel was lost as the storm roared and gyrated across the Gulf
of Mexico and crashed upon the Texas coast, destroying a large part
of the city and drowning six thousand people.
The hurricane is simply a rapidly gyrating cyclone; it usually is
only one to three hundred miles in diameter. The storm that destroyed
Galveston moved across the Caribbean Sea at the rate of only about
eight to ten miles an hour. It increased its rate as it moved
northward, crossing the Gulf at about fifteen miles per hour. The
speed of translation was so slow and the velocity of gyration so
rapid that immense swells were propagated outward from the center of
the storm; they reached the Texas coast some sixteen hours before the
storm itself reached Galveston. As it moved northward to Iowa its
velocity of translation increased and its rate of gyration decreased,
so that it crossed the Lakes with both movements at about sixty miles
per hour. At Galveston the anemometer blew to pieces after recording
one hundred and thirty miles per hour.
=Danger to Atlantic Coast Summer Resorts.= The writer frequently
has been asked as to the possibilities of a populous Atlantic coast
resort being submerged by the waters driven inshore by a hurricane,
or being lifted up in the center of the storm as the result of
decreased air pressure inside the cyclonic whirl. The answer is that
such a catastrophe is possible to any Atlantic coast city (more
especially those south of Norfolk) that is not protected by a heavy
breakwater of ten to twenty feet above sea level, and whose building
foundations and walls are not of brick or concrete for at least ten
feet above the water level. It would be necessary for a West Indian
hurricane of unusual intensity—one similar to that which wrecked
Galveston—to be considerably deflected westward out of its normal
track in order to hit one of our coast cities north of Chesapeake Bay
so that the center of the storm would pass over it, or near enough to
cause destruction. In Galveston there was little damage to strongly
constructed buildings of brick or stone.
=The Breaking of Droughts.= It is most important for the forecaster
to know when and how droughts may be broken. He will observe that
when the great cereal plains are famishing for moisture the Lows
all originate on the middle or north Rocky Mountain plateau, in the
region of Colorado or Montana, and that the drought continues until
the Lows begin to form in the extreme southwest—in Arizona, New
Mexico, or Texas. As previously stated such Lows always bring rain as
they move northeastward.
=Warm Waves.= There come in summer periods of almost stagnation in
the drift of the Highs and the Lows across the continent. At such
times if a High be centered in the South Atlantic Ocean, with its
center at Bermuda, and its western limits extending into the South
Atlantic coast States, there will result what is popularly known as
a warm wave, for the air will slowly and steadily move from the
southeast, where the pressure is greater, towards the northwest,
where it is less; it will receive constant accretions of heat
from the radiating surface of the earth, and finally attain to a
temperature that is extremely uncomfortable to all forms of life,
that lowers the physical stamina, and that largely increases the
death rate. This superheated condition of the lower stratum of air
in which we live continues until a Low develops in the southwest and
a High in the northwest, which relation, as we already know, soon
brings rainfall to the interior of the country.
=V-shaped Lows= are reasonably sure to cause precipitation, and
if the barometer at the center of the Low be five to seven tenths
below the outer limits of the depression, heavy precipitation and
destructive local storms may be expected.
=Thunderstorms.= The thunderstorm is caused by cold and heavy air
from above breaking through into a lighter and superheated stratum
next the earth. Some of them have a horizontal rolling motion which
throws forward the cool air in the direction in which the storm is
moving. It seldom is more than five or ten miles in width and twenty
to thirty miles in length. In general, thunderstorms move from the
west toward some eastern point, more often southwest to northeast.
The frequency of thunderstorms is the greatest with ill-defined Lows
whose pressure is but little below the normal air pressure of thirty
inches. Any depression of the barometer slightly below the level at
surrounding stations—such as occurs when a weak High of only thirty
inches, or thirty and one tenth inches, breaks up into two or more
areas, with slightly lower pressure between them—is fruitful of
thunderstorms. A High of but modest intensity advancing eastward
into a region of slightly lower pressure and much higher temperature
causes thunderstorms along its eastern front. A temperature of 80°
on the morning weather map, with a high humidity, seldom can endure
beyond the second day without a break and the coming of cooling
thunder-showers. Any Low with abnormal heat and humidity in its
southeast quadrant is usually attended with numerous thunder squalls
in the regions of high temperature and moisture.
Of the thunderstorm days in the United States few occur in the
Rocky Mountain regions or in northern New England. The greatest
number is in Florida and the Gulf States and thence northward up the
Mississippi Valley.
=The Moon Has No Influence on the Weather.= The moon used to be the
farmer’s most valued friend as a forecaster of the weather and as a
guide in the planting of crops, but a higher order of intelligence is
causing this fallacy to pass away. The moon’s nearness to the earth
and the fact that its phases occur in about seven days, which is
about twice the period of storm recurrence, in the minds of many have
endowed it with potency in the influencing of our weather. Rain may
occur on the same day of the week for several weeks in succession,
but only occasionally, while the moon is constantly progressing from
one phase to another. The few cases that prove the mistaken theory
are taken as proof conclusive, while the many cases that do not prove
acceptable to the moon forecaster are ignored and not mentioned to
his friends nor even acknowledged to himself. One is reluctant to
have a belief disproved, no matter how ridiculous it may be. In fact,
the more untenable it is, the more tenaciously some adhere to it,
as though they were loyally standing by an old friend who had made
mistakes, but who still was good at heart. The attraction of the
moon, because of its nearness and notwithstanding its small mass, is
far more potent in the raising of the tides of the ocean than is the
sun, but its attraction on our atmosphere produces a tide of only
four thousandths of an inch of the barometer, an influence that is
shadowy and without the least influence in causing storms, or changes
of any kind in the weather; and there is no possible way in which the
moon could influence the germination of seed or the growing of crops.
=Equinoctial Storm.= As the summer wanes the Lows become more
pronounced and the sporadic showers give place to general rain storms
along in September. There is no objection to these storms being
known as “Equinoctial”, except that any date in the latter half of
September is as liable to show a beginning of these storms as is the
21st or the 22d. The equinox simply marks the middle period in the
transition from one type of weather to another.
=Forecasting from Halos.= The halos that sometimes surround the sun
or the moon indicate the coming of precipitation to the extent of
making manifest the presence in the upper air of large quantities of
vapor of water in a congealed state. When the vapor of water cools
quietly in the laboratory it frequently forms minute spheres of
water, which, strange to relate, may remain liquid all the way down
to zero and below; but if touched or jostled they instantly turn to
ice, in the form of spiculæ, or needles; they are simply hexagonal
slender prisms capped by hexagonal pyramids. These needles rotate
or spin about as they fall. The geometrical relations of the facets
of the crystals to the axis of rotation and to the line along which
they fall are a complex problem in optics. Suffice to say that the
observer, looking through a filmy cloud of such crystals, would see
in one part of the sky a halo, in another part an arc of light, and
in other directions bright spots like the sun, all of them arranged
symmetrically with regard to the sun and the observer’s zenith. A
lunar halo is a large ring concentric about the moon. A secondary
halo surrounds the first. Mock suns or mock moons may appear
coincident with solar or lunar halos. The ice prisms through which
one sees the phenomena both refract and diffract the light as it
passes through the cloud and by partly decomposing the rays render
visible a part of their elementary colors. The red is on the inside,
next to which is a little yellow or green, with bluish white on
the outside. In coronas, which are much smaller, the red is on the
outside. A detailed description of these phenomena may be found in
Moore’s “Descriptive Meteorology” (Appleton).
=Tornadoes.= The cyclone has a diameter of a thousand to two
thousand miles, the hurricane about one to three hundred and the
tornado only one to ten hundred _feet_. The hurricane is much more
destructive than the cyclone, and the tornado is incomparably greater
in velocity of gyration and rending force than the hurricane. New
England, Florida, and the wide region including the eastern slope
of the Rocky Mountains westward to the Pacific are nearly free from
the atmospheric convulsions that cause the tornadoes, and they are
infrequent in any Atlantic coast State, but numerous in the States
bordering on the Mississippi River, and in the eastern halves of
Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska. During a year of great frequency of
tornadoes, about ninety storms occurred, while during some other
years the number has been as low as twenty. The direction generally
is toward the northeast. The average rate of movement of the tornado
cloud is about twenty-five miles per hour and the width of its
destructive path only five hundred to one thousand feet; the time of
passage is less than half a minute. It does not come upon one unseen
and unheralded. Many times the advancing funnel-shaped clouds may be
seen, and they always are accompanied by a great roar which may be
heard for miles. Except a tornado cellar, the cellar of a frame house
is the safest place. The writer has examined either the wrecks or the
records of hundreds of tornadoes and does not know of a single case
of a person being killed by a tornado in the cellar of a frame house.
If one is in the open and a tornado approaches, never flee to the
north or to the east, but rather to the northwest, and one needs to
travel but a short distance to pass out of the track of the monster.
The tornado always twists counter clockwise, the same as the cyclone
in whose southeast quadrant it nearly always occurs. On the southeast
side of the path there are indrafts; so that it is safer, unless the
track of the oncoming storm is clearly seen to be well to the north
of the observer, for one to run toward the northwest. Persons have
stood near to the north side of a tornado track during its passage
without suffering injury. If a cave, the cellar of a frame house, or
a narrow ditch cannot be reached, the best thing to do is to lie flat
on the ground as far from buildings and trees as possible.
The tornado is essentially an American storm, doubtless caused by the
running together, in the southeast quadrant of a cyclone, of cold
northwest currents and warm winds from the southeast, at a time when
the latter are saturated with moisture. They are confined almost
entirely to the region between the two great mountain systems of the
continent, none occurring in the Rocky Mountains and but few east of
the Alleghanies. The north and south trend of our mountain systems,
quite different from the systems of Europe and Asia, facilitates
the coming together of conflicting winds of widely different
temperatures in the lower reaches of the atmosphere where there is
an abundance of water vapor; no tornadic whirls probably can occur
without an abundance of water vapor and the energizing effect of
the heat liberated in the whirling cloud as this vapor is suddenly
carried aloft and liberated by condensation right in the center of
the disturbance. Because of the relation of the trend of its great
mountain systems to its oceans, the United States occupies a somewhat
unique position meteorologically in the world. Its atmospheric
conditions are more active than those of any other continent, which
conditions are beneficial to the people of this country.
=When to Watch the Weather Map for Tornadoes.= The four conditions
essential to the formation of tornadoes are as follows:
1. A cyclone, the center of which is to the north or northwest;
2. An isotherm of 70° or over extending from the southeast well
up into the center of the cyclone, and then passing outward
toward the southwest, all inside the southeast quadrant of the
Low;
3. Excessive humidity;
4. Time of year March 15 to June 15.
[Illustration: FIG. 17.—TORNADO CLOUD.]
If any one of the four foregoing conditions be absent, tornadoes are
not liable to occur. The reason why spring and early summer is the
time when tornadoes are most frequent is because the earth and a
thin stratum of air immediately next the earth are heated up rapidly
with the gaining heat of the sun’s rays in the spring, while the air
a short distance aloft still retains much of the cold of winter. At
this time cyclonic action may bring together air masses of widely
different temperatures, especially when the upper layers on the west
side of the Low are drawn down and commingled with the hot and humid
surface winds of the southeast quadrant.
=Tornadoes Not Increasing.= The writer does not indorse the theory
that the number of these storms is increasing; that the breaking of
the virgin soil of the prairie, the planting or the cutting away of
the forests, the drainage of land surfaces by tiles, the stringing
of thousands of miles of wire, or the laying of iron and steel rails
have materially altered the climate or contributed to the frequency
or the intensity of storms. To be sure, as population becomes more
dense greater destruction will ensue with the same number of storms.
=Difficult to Forecast Tornadoes.= It is not possible for the
forecaster to warn the exact cities and towns that will be struck by
tornadoes without unduly alarming many places that will wholly escape
injury. What we know is that tornadoes are almost wholly confined
to the southeast quadrant of a cyclone, and that when the thermal,
hygrometric, and time conditions are favorable, a region about one
or two hundred miles square will be sacrificed by a number of these
atmospheric twisters. One of the most destructive tornadoes of record
devastated St. Louis in the afternoon of May 27, 1896. The abnormal
heat and humidity of a rather small and weak cyclone centered in
eastern Kansas on the morning weather map of that day, caused the
Weather Bureau to distribute tornado forecasts at 10 A.M. throughout
all of Missouri. The schools of St. Louis were dismissed and the
children sent home on receipt of the warning, and although some eight
or ten separate tornadoes touched various parts of the State and the
people were prepared for their coming, so many people were terrorized
by the warning in communities that were not harmed, that the writer,
then Chief of the Weather Bureau, at once issued orders forbidding
the specific forecasting of tornadoes in the future. Under tornadic
conditions the forecast is for “conditions favorable for severe local
storms.”
=Freaks of the Tornado.= The writer was in St. Louis the day after
the storm and spent much time in examining the wreckage. He was
impressed with the fact that some buildings were burst outward and
that all four walls fell away from their bases, indicating that the
tornado cloud must have lifted and dropped down over them in such a
way that the partial vacuum that is created by the rotating cloud
through centrifugal force so reduced the pressure of the air on the
outside of the houses that the normal pressure of fifteen pounds per
square inch exploded them. He saw bricks in a plastered wall that
were neatly cleaned of all plaster by the expansion of the air inside
the brick, as the air pressure from the outside was reduced. He saw a
two by four pine scantling shot through five eighths of solid iron on
the Eads Bridge, the pine stick protruding several feet through the
iron side of the roadway, exemplifying the old principle of shooting
a candle through a board. He saw a six by eight piece of timber
driven four feet almost straight down into the hard compact soil, a
gardener’s spade shot six inches into the tough body of a tree, a
chip driven through the limb of a tree, and wheat straws forced into
the body of a tree to the depth of over half an inch. Such was the
fearful velocity of the wind as it gyrated about the small center
of the tornado,—a velocity exceeding that of any rifle bullet. (See
Figures 17, 18, 19, and 20.)
[Illustration: FIG. 18.—THE ST. LOUIS TORNADO OF MAY 27, 1896, SHOT A
PINE SCANTLING THROUGH THE IRON SIDE OF THE EADS BRIDGE.]
[Illustration: FIG. 19.—THE ST. LOUIS TORNADO OF MAY 27, 1896, SHOT A
SHOVEL SIX INCHES INTO THE BODY OF A TREE.]
Some have advocated the planting of trees to the southwest of cities
in the regions where tornadoes are frequent, so that the tornadoes
may expend their energy in uprooting the trees before they come to
the city, but this storm traveled through several miles of brick
buildings, razing them to the ground and almost pulverizing them
and still left the city apparently with greater force than it had
on entering. The largest trees would offer no more resistance to a
tornado cloud than would so many blades of grass.
When the official forecasts contain the statement that conditions are
favorable for “severe local storms” it would be well to carefully
observe the formation of portentous clouds in the west and southwest,
between 3 and 6 o’clock in the afternoon, and if one with black,
ragged fringes on its lower edge and accompanied with a noise like
several railroad trains makes its appearance, seek safety in the
cellar of a frame house.
[Illustration: FIG. 20.—THE ST. LOUIS TORNADO DROVE STRAWS ONE HALF
INCH INTO WOOD.]
=General Rules for Forecastings.= What has gone before in this
chapter gives an idea of what guides the weather forecaster in
making his deductions. In brief, he studies the developments and the
movements of the Highs and the Lows during the past two or three
days, as shown by preceding weather maps, and from the knowledge
gained forecasts the future course and intensity of the fair and
the foul weather areas for one, two, or three days in advance. By
preserving the weather map each day and noting the movements of the
Highs and the Lows, any intelligent person can make a fairly accurate
forecast for himself, always remembering that the Lows, as they drift
towards him, will bring warmer weather and sometimes rain or snow,
and that as they pass his place of observation the Highs following
in the tracks of the Lows will bring cooler and fair weather, except
during periods of extreme summer heat, when the Lows bring showers
that cool the parched earth; and except in the north Rocky Mountain
plateau, where most of the precipitation occurs after the center of
the Low has passed and northwest winds are blowing.
The amateur weather forecaster can closely anticipate the temperature
of his region by remembering that the weather will be cool and the
humidity low so long as the center of the predominating High (the
High inclosing the greatest area within the thirty-inch isobar) is
north of his latitude, either northeast or northwest, and that it
will be warm so long as the High is south of the parallel of latitude
that passes through his section of country.
He will find that the centers of the Lows will follow closely the
direction indicated by the isotherms that lead eastward out of their
centers, and that they move across the country from the west in quite
regular succession, and that the frequent changes from sunshine to
clouds and from warm to cold are the result of the mixing of the air
by these atmospheric eddies.
Experience will teach him that Lows from the southwest are reasonably
sure of causing precipitation, and that if his temperature be
sufficiently low—anywhere from zero to 20°—the fall will be in the
shape of snow; that Lows that only skirt our northern border will be
deficient in precipitation, even if they cause any at all; that the
slow settling of a High over the South Atlantic States means heat for
all the rest of the country east of the Rocky Mountains in degree
that will be dependent upon the magnitude and the intensity of the
southern High; that the heat will continue, even if temporarily
interrupted by showers, so long as this High retains its location in
the southeast; that tornadoes occur in the spring of the year when
Lows have excessive heat and humidity in their southeast quadrants;
that V-shaped Lows cause violent local storms, if not tornadoes, and
often deluges of rain; and that frosts may be expected in the country
when a minimum temperature of 40° is forecast for the city; and that
the severity of cold waves modifies as they come eastward, and that
they will only flow as far south as the area covered by the Low that
preceded them,—that is to say, by that part of the Low included in
the thirty-inch isobar, or by a close approximation to such area.
National Forecaster E. H. Bowie, known to the writer as one of
the ablest forecasters ever developed by the Weather Bureau, in a
recent most valuable publication by the Bureau, entitled “Weather
Forecasting in the United States”, formulates rules for forecasting
as follows:
1. When there is an area of high pressure over the southeast and
a cold wave in the northwest threatens, there will be a storm
development in the southwest and precipitation will be general.
2. If a storm form in the southwest and be forced to the left of a
normal track (Charts 10 and 11), another storm will immediately begin
to develop in the southwest and it becomes a sure rain producer.
Storms that develop in the southwest and move normally are quickly
followed by clearing weather.
3. Troughs of low pressure moving from the west are of two types—the
narrow and the wide. The former moves eastward slowly and storm
centers develop in the extreme northern and the extreme southern
ends. When the trough is wide, the development of an extensive storm
area is not uncommon, especially if the wide intervening area between
the Highs shows relatively high temperatures.
4. When the northern end of a trough moves eastward faster than the
southern end, the weather conditions in the south and southwest
remain unsettled and the chances are that a storm will form southwest
of the High that follows. When the southern end moves faster than the
northern end, settled weather follows.
5. Storms that start in the northwest and move southeastward do not
gather great intensity until they begin to recurve to the northward.
At the time of recurving they move slowly, as a rule, and care must
be exercised in predicting clearing weather.
6. Marked changes in temperature in the southeast and northwest
quadrants imply an increase in the storm’s intensity. Small
temperature changes do not indicate a further development of the
storm.
7. Abnormally high temperatures northwest of a storm indicate that it
will either retrograde or remain stationary.
8. East of the Rocky Mountains, a storm which moves to the left of
its normal track increases in intensity.
9. Storms with isobars closely crowded on the west and northwest
generally move slowly and to the east or southeast, and the
precipitation and high winds are maintained unusually long in the
northern and western quadrants.
10. Storms with the isobars closely crowded in the south and
southeast quadrants move rapidly northeastward and the weather
quickly clears after the passage of the storm center.
=Rules for Making Local Forecasts.= As an illustration of what may
be done by the local observer or the layman in formulating rules
of weather forecasting for his immediate vicinities, the following
rules, which were evolved by the writer in 1892, while serving as
the Weather Bureau local forecaster for Milwaukee, Wisconsin, are
subjoined:
1. In summer warmer weather occurs after the center of the Low has
passed a little to the east, and southwest winds are blowing, because
the easterly winds, which otherwise would be the warmest winds, are
cooled by passing over the lake.
2. A Low from the northwest that reaches western Minnesota and
western Iowa without precipitation or clouds will pass over Wisconsin
as a dry Low, unless the isobars are closer than five eighths of an
inch.
3. Light frosts will occur on clear, quiet nights in the cranberry
marshes when minimum temperatures at Duluth and La Crosse fall to 40°
and 45° respectively. When these stations record five degrees lower
the frost will be killing in the cranberry marshes and light in the
tobacco fields of the southern counties of the State.
4. No frost will occur in the counties bordering on Lake Michigan
until the temperatures at the Weather Bureau stations fall close to
the freezing point, such is the influence of the lake in storing up
heat and slowly radiating it during the night; and on the eastern
side of the lake its protecting influence is much greater.
5. When the wind sets in from points between south and southeast and
the barometer falls steadily, a storm is approaching from the west
or northwest, and its center will pass near or north of the observer
within twelve to twenty-four hours, with wind shifting to northwest
by way of south and southwest. When the wind sets in from points
between east and northeast and the barometer falls steadily, a storm
is approaching from the south or southwest, and its center will pass
near or to the south of the observer within twelve to twenty-four
hours, with wind shifting to northwest by way of north. The rapidity
of the storm’s approach and its intensity will be indicated by the
rate and the amount of the fall in the barometer.
=Vast Extent of the Area Brought Under Observation.= It is a
wonderful panoramic picture of atmospheric conditions which, by the
aid of the electro-magnetic telegraph and two hundred simultaneously
reporting stations, is presented to the eye of the forecaster. Each
day the kaleidoscope changes and a new graphic picture comes into
view. Nowhere else in the world can the student of the weather find
such opportunities.
Early meteorologists studied only the storm of low levels and humid
airs, where convection only needed to carry the moist air currents to
but a slightly higher elevation before cooling by expansion would
produce condensation and an immediate acceleration of the cyclone by
the liberation of latent heat within the region of the upward-moving
air in its central area. They never had seen the cyclones of the arid
northern Rocky Mountain plateau move down to our Great Lakes with
rapidly increasing energy, notwithstanding the fact that there had
been little condensation, and hence no addition of the latent heat
that Espy supposed was essential to a continuation of storms.
The widely differing elevation, topography, temperature, and moisture
of the broad region under observation by the United States Weather
Bureau present conditions unequaled for the study of every phase
of storm development and translation, or at least such as may be
comprehended from data taken on the bottom of the atmospheric ocean;
and it is but a matter of a short time when the data for extremely
high levels will be added.
Here we see summer cyclones formed under the intense solar radiation
that beats down through a nearly diathermanous atmosphere upon the
wastes of the Rocky Mountain plateaus; cyclones that, if they form
in the northern part of the plateau region, move eastward to our
Lakes and thence eastward to the St. Lawrence with scant rainfall;
cyclones that, if they have their origin farther south in the region
of Colorado, move into the Ohio Valley and thence to New England with
considerably more precipitation; and cyclones that, if they have
their origin anywhere in our southwest States or Texas, or enter
our region of observation from the South Pacific Ocean, can always
be expected to cause general rainfall when they reach the Lower
Mississippi Valley and later as they pass up through the central
portions of the continent.
Here also one may view the great winter cyclones that originate in
the Pacific between Hawaii and the Aleutian Islands and come under
our vision as they successfully surmount the formidable barriers
of the Rocky Mountains with but little diminution of energy, sweep
across our continent with increasing force and heavy precipitation,
and within three days pass beyond our meteorological horizon at the
Atlantic seaboard only to be heard from several days later as boreal
ravagers of Northern Europe.
The great anti-cyclones that constitute the American cold waves drift
into our territory from Canadian Northwest provinces, and are studied
under rapidly changing conditions during three thousand miles of
their course.
West Indian hurricanes, at sea level and in humid air, which are
the most violent of all storms except the American tornado, intrude
themselves into the domain covered by the weather map at Florida or
the East Gulf coast and usually pass off to the northeast with high
winds skirting our southern coast stations.
=Permanent Highs and Lows in the Pacific Are Great Centers of
Action.= Near the end of Chapter XII reference is made to the fact
that there is a barrier in the Pacific Ocean that interferes with the
movement of storms from the Orient, but which does not entirely stop
their progress. Extensive Highs and Lows, sometimes called “Centers
of Action” because they do not migrate like the traveling Highs and
Lows that cause the alternations of weather that we experience from
day to day, are also called Sub-permanent Highs and Lows. They are
the parent systems out of which come many of the Highs and Lows that
cross the North American continent, and they act as a bar to the free
passage of storms from the Far East. As these Sub-permanent areas
shift their centers a little to the north or to the south they change
the character and the line of movement of the storms and cool waves
that come to us, and they alter the general character of the weather
for thousands of miles to the east of them. In the region of Iceland
is the center of an extensive Sub-permanent Low that has much to do
in controlling the weather of Europe, and there is a Sub-permanent
High central at or near Bermuda in the southern part of the North
Atlantic Ocean. Whenever the latter is built up by having a migrating
High from the North American continent join with it, the whole
United States experiences what is called a “hot wave”, and the heat
continues as long as this Sub-permanent High remains unusually high
and extends its western limits to include our South Atlantic States.
The matter in the foregoing paragraph is so important that it will
be restated in slightly different form: Whenever either the High
or the Low Center of Action (Sub-permanent High and Low), out of
which comes nearly all of the migrating Highs and Lows, shifts its
normal seasonal position, then storms are erratic and unusual weather
occurs over the North American continent and farther eastward. The
reason why much the greater number of the storms that cross the
United States, the Atlantic Ocean, and Europe originate either in
our Rockies, the Canadian Northwest, or just off the Alaskan coast
is due to the fact (Chart 1, page 99) that the Low center of action
is normally over the middle and northern Rocky Mountain plateau in
summer, and over the Aleutian Islands (Chart 2, page 100) in winter.
The High that follows the migrating Low in winter either separates
from the center of action central over the Canadian Rockies (Chart
2), or from the one central at Honolulu; if from the latter, the
weather will be simply cooler after the passage of the Low, but if
the High separates from the center of action in the Canadian Rockies
it will constitute a cold wave as it follows a Low southeastward into
the interior of the United States and then eastward to the coast.
CHAPTER X
CLIMATE
CHANGE OF SOLAR RAYS INTO LIGHT, HEAT, AND OTHER FORMS OF ENERGY
AS THEY ARE ABSORBED BY OUR ATMOSPHERE OR AS THEY ENCOUNTER THE
EARTH—TEMPERATURES OF WATER, EARTH, AND AIR—HOW SANITARY HOMES
MAY BE CHEAPLY CONSTRUCTED BELOW GROUND, COOL IN SUMMER AND WARM
IN WINTER
=Difference between Climate and Weather.= One may speak of the
weather of to-day or of some time that is past, but not of the
climate of to-day, or of any day, month, or year that is gone: for
the climate of a place is determined by a study of its weather
records for a long period of years. Climate changes so slowly that
we speak of the movement as a mutation rather than as a change. The
time that has elapsed since the discovery of the barometer and the
thermometer—about two and a half centuries—is so short as to show
little if any change in climate, while the weather changes from day
to day.
=The Sun Our Only Source of Appreciable Heat.= Each one of the stars
visible to the eye and many of the millions that are not visible, are
suns accompanied by planets. Their conditions are similar to those
of our sun, except that most of them are larger than our sun, some
a million times larger. But their distance is so great that they
exercise little or no influence in the heating of the earth. Light
travels at about the rate of 186,400 miles per second, and yet these
stars are so distant that if the nearest one had been created at the
time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence we still would
be in ignorance of its existence, for its first rays of light would
not reach us for many years yet to come; and light from some of the
remote suns that we call stars requires thousands of years to come.
It is apparent therefore that we depend exclusively upon our own
luminary for the heat that warms our atmosphere and gives life to the
surface of the earth.
[Illustration: FIG. 21.—Equinoxes, March 21 and September 22. Axis
perpendicular to Sun’s rays. Day and night everywhere equal.]
=Different Temperatures with the Same Quantity of Solar Heat.= On
the same day of each year at the same place practically the same
amount of heat falls upon and into the earth’s atmosphere from the
sun, but rarely does the same temperature and weather occur, and
often there is wide variation in the weather of the same day of two
different years. The first of July may be cold enough to wear an
overcoat at midday, or the first of January may be so temperate as
to permit the donning of summer habiliments, while, according to the
amount of heat received from the sun, there would have occurred the
usual seasonal conditions on the days named had there been no other
influence than the direct action of the sun’s heat. The cause of
these seeming inconsistencies is due to the motions of the atmosphere
in a stratum only five to seven miles in depth, air cooling by
expansion as it ascends in cyclonic whirls and heating as it descends
in anti-cyclonic movements. Condensation, in the form of cloud or
rain or snow, also introduces complications, usually producing a
cooling effect in summer and a warming in winter. In other words:
interference in the uniform and gradual change in temperature, of
the lower stratum of air in which we live, from the heat of summer
to the cold of winter, and then the reverse process, is due entirely
to the heating and the cooling of the lower air by its upward and
downward motions.
[Illustration: FIG. 22.—Summer Solstice, June 21. North Pole leans
towards Sun’s rays.]
[Illustration: FIG. 23.—Winter Solstice, December 21. North Pole is
dark now instead of light, as at Summer Solstice. Pole leans in same
direction but Earth being on opposite side of its orbit rays come
from opposite direction. Refer to Figure 24.]
If the earth’s axis were vertical to the plane of its orbit all
places on its surface always would have days of twelve hours each
and the nights would be of the same length; sunshine would just
touch both poles (Figure 21) throughout the entire course of the
earth around the sun and there would be no seasons. One would need
to change one’s location on the earth in order to get a change of
weather, which would be monotonous and quite different from the
active conditions of the atmosphere that we now enjoy. The whole
conditions of life would be altered for the worse. You have seen a
top tilt over to one side as it spun on the floor. In the same way
the earth spins on its axis as it pursues its course around the sun
without changing the direction towards which its axis points, as
shown by Figure 24.
[Illustration: FIG. 24.—Note that direction of axis does not change
as Earth moves around Sun. This causes variation in area of surface
illuminated. If axis were perpendicular to plane of orbit there would
be no seasons.]
[Illustration: FIG. 25.—As angle of incidence decreases from 90° to
10° the heat received on upper end of blocks is spread over greater
area at bottom, and its temperature diminished. (Abbe.)]
The intensity of the sun’s rays at sunrise and at sunset is less than
at midday because the quantity of heat received at the outer limits
of the atmosphere on a given area, as for instance at the area of
the upper ends of the blocks in Figure 25, passes through a deeper
stratum of air the lower the angle of incidence, and because it is
distributed over a larger area when it reaches the surface of the
earth.
As the heat of day increases from morning until midday and then
decreases, so does the heat of the year increase from midwinter
to midsummer and then decrease, and for the same reason: change
in obliquity of the sun’s rays, to which must be added change in
distance from the central luminary. Figure 26 shows that the sun
reaches its greatest midday altitude on June 21st and its least on
December 21st.
[Illustration: FIG. 26.—Observer at center of picture at latitude
45°. Showing altitude attained by the Sun at midday and length of its
track above the horizon at the Summer and Winter Solstices and at the
two Equinoxes.]
=Solar Rays Absorbed by the Atmosphere.= The atmosphere of the earth
absorbs about seventy-six per cent. of the solar rays that pass
through it. About one half is absorbed by a cloudless atmosphere,
and nearly all is absorbed or reflected away by a cloudy air. On the
average about fifty-two per cent. of the earth’s surface is obscured
by clouds all the time, which reduces the total amount of heat that
reaches the earth to but twenty-four per cent. But in regions like
the high plateau of the Rocky Mountains, where there is little
cloudiness or moisture in the air, fully fifty per cent. reach the
earth. At the equator, when the sun is in the zenith at noon, the
rays strike the earth perpendicularly and reach the earth through
the shortest air distance possible; but for latitudes far north or
south of the equator, the rays are more oblique and must pass through
an ever-increasing thickness of air as the latitude increases.
Consequently the heat that reaches the earth at high latitudes
decreases, not only on account of the greater obliquity of the sun’s
rays, but also because of the longer path of atmosphere traversed,
which causes a further loss by absorption.
=The Lag of Earth Temperatures.= The solar rays reach their greatest
intensity on June 21st, in the Northern Hemisphere, when the sun
attains the farthest point north, and the obliquity of its rays is
the least, but the highest temperature of the air for the year does
not occur on the average for a month or six weeks later, due to the
capacity of the earth and air to absorb heat; and the maximum for the
earth does not occur until still later. The sun is the farthest south
on December 21st, but the minimum air temperature of the year, on the
average, does not occur until a month later, and at a later period in
the earth. At Munich, Bavaria, at a depth of four feet, the minimum
annual temperature occurs on the 2d of March, and the maximum on the
24th of August. For each increase of four feet in depth the time
of occurrence of either maximum or minimum temperature is retarded
twenty-one days, the minimum not occurring until the 23d of May at
a depth of 20.2°, and the maximum being retarded until the 17th of
November.
=Annual Range in Air Temperature.= The difference in temperature
between winter and summer increases from the equator northward and
from all oceans toward the interior of continents, and is greater
in the middle latitudes on the eastern side of large bodies of land
than on their western side. Yakutsk, Siberia, has experienced 80°
below zero in January and 102° above in July, making a range of 182°.
Dawson, Canada, has a record of 68° below for winter and 94° above
for summer, making a range of 162°. In marked contrast with these
large differences, shown in the northern interior of continents, is
the annual range at Samoa, from a maximum of 92° to a minimum of 62°,
a range for the year of only 30° for this island of the Pacific,
located near the equator.
=Reversal of the Seasons in the Two Hemispheres.= The summer is
shorter in the Southern Hemisphere than in the Northern and the
winter is longer, but the Southern Hemisphere is nearer to the sun in
the summer and farther away in winter, conditions that tend to add to
the extremes of both seasons. Because of the slowness of the earth
in passing through one half of its orbit, the northern summer lasts
ninety-three days, while that of the Southern Hemisphere lasts but
eighty-nine days. The result is that during like seasons and during
the whole year the two hemispheres receive exactly the same quantity
of heat.
=Only Water Vapor Protects the Earth from Death by Freezing.=
In Chapter IV you are told that the earth is surrounded by four
atmospheres that conduct themselves each quite independently of the
others, and that water vapor (aqueous vapor) is one of them. Water
vapor plays the most important part in absorbing incoming rays and
in absorbing and reflecting back outgoing heat rays from the earth.
Without the vaporous atmosphere the sun’s rays would be but slightly
absorbed as they entered and radiation from the earth would readily
escape through the atmosphere to outer space. No matter how fiercely
the sun might shine, life on the earth would be entirely destroyed by
cold.
When water vapor, clouds, or dust motes intercept certain portions
of the sun’s rays, they change them from vibrations in ether to
the motions of molecules, and the motions of these molecules are
expressed in a rise in temperature in the vapor, cloud, or dust.
Earth radiations of heat, having longer and slower wave lengths
than those that come from the sun, are more readily absorbed by the
atmosphere.
One of the principal functions of the atmosphere is to protect the
earth from the intense cold of outer space, which must be near or at
absolute zero—459° below the zero mark.
=Why Should Not Mountain Peaks Be Warm? They Are Nearer the Sun.= The
absorption by the atmosphere of both solar and terrestrial radiation
is greater in the lower levels of the air, where water vapor, cloud,
and dust are the densest, while the transmission of both incoming and
outgoing radiation is more rapid through the pure air aloft. Thus we
account for the coolness of all mountain peaks, and the perpetual
freezing temperatures of some, even though they be located in the
tropics, and though their tops occupy positions several miles nearer
the sun than the bases from which they rise.
=How the Earth Cools at Night.= Radiation from the earth goes on
day and night, winter and summer. During daylight the gain of heat
is greater than the loss, while at night the reverse is true. After
sunset both the earth and the air continue to cool by radiation
unchecked by the incoming heat of the daytime. The earth loses heat,
even under a clear sky, more freely than the air, with the result
that the surface of the ground and of vegetation may fall to a
temperature ten to fifteen degrees lower than that of the air at a
few hundred feet elevation. This condition is called “temperature
inversion.” The greater difference will occur when there is little
wind to mix the air. On a clear night the radiation outward will be
rapid; then, if the wind be light, there may occur an increase in
temperature up to a height of two hundred to four hundred feet, and
then a fall, reaching the surface temperature at about two thousand
feet elevation, unless the ground be wet, or the location be adjacent
to a considerable body of water.
=A Cloud Covering Cools by Day and Warms by Night.= One of the
principal functions of clouds is to conserve the heat of the sun. A
covering of cloud, fog, or dense haze may not only screen off the
heat of day, but greatly retard the lowering of temperature at night
by reflecting and radiating back to the ground much of the heat that
it has lost.
=The Temperature of Oceans, Lakes, and Rivers.= The same quantity
of heat falling upon different kinds of matter produces different
temperatures, depending on the capacity (specific heat) of each kind
of matter to absorb or hold heat; this is notably apparent when
the matter is land, water, or air; for the same quantity of heat
will raise the temperature of a water surface only about one fourth
as much as it will a land surface. Water rejects by reflection a
considerable amount of the solar rays that fall upon it, while land
reflects but a small part; and of that which is received upon the top
layer of water much is rendered latent in the process of evaporation
and does not impart warmth to the water. Solar rays also penetrate
water to a considerable depth and are quite uniformly absorbed by the
whole stratum penetrated. These conditions cause large water surfaces
and the air immediately over them to have a much lower temperature
during the day and a much higher temperature during the night; and
also lower temperatures during summer and higher temperatures during
winter, than occur over a land surface of the same latitude.
=Fresh Water and Salt Water Have Different Freezing Temperatures.= In
the ratio of 93.5 to 100 the specific heat of sea water is less than
that of fresh water. Sea water is a better conductor of heat, so that
it penetrates to a greater depth in salt water in the same period of
time than it does in fresh water. Sea water regularly contracts with
falling temperature until its greatest density occurs at four degrees
below freezing, when it becomes solid ice and expands in the process
of freezing; otherwise it would not float.
=A Wonderful Phenomenon.= In this respect a most wonderful and
unexplainable phenomenon occurs with regard to fresh water. Not only
sea water but practically all other forms of matter—liquid, solid,
and gaseous—expand with increasing heat and contract with decreasing
heat, except fresh water between 39° and 32°, which actually expands
with falling temperature. It seems as though the Creator had gone
over His work and made revisions and corrections here and there, for
unless the law with regard to the contraction of liquids with falling
temperatures had been reversed for fresh water between 39° and 32°
our rivulets, streams, lakes, and rivers would freeze from the bottom
upward and the life of inland water be wholly or partly destroyed.
Even more calamitous would be the floods of springtime, for melting
snows and falling rains would spread over and erode the cultivated
fields of the husbandman instead of being carried away by the open
channels of streams, as is largely done now.
=The Freezing of Fresh and of Salt Bodies of Water.= The freezing of
water does not take place upon the surface of water only, as many
suppose. Congelation takes place about millions of minute atoms of
matter carried by the water in suspension. Water expands in the
process of freezing and each particle of ice, no matter in what part
of the body of water it is formed, immediately rises to the surface
because of the gain in its buoyance as it changes from the liquid to
the solid form.
When the surface of water cools by radiation to a cooler air it
gains in specific gravity and sinks and warmer water comes up to
take its place and in turn be cooled and sink; thus a circulation is
established which continues in fresh water until every part of the
body of water has fallen to 39° and in salt water to 28°. At these
temperatures the two waters reach their maximum density. With the
further cooling of salt water particles of ice form and rise to the
top, as already described. With the cooling of fresh water below 39°
the law that holds good for all higher temperatures is reversed and
expansion of volume begins, which continues until 32° is reached.
Therefore, fresh water of any temperature between 39° and 32° may
float upon water that is considerably warmer; in fact, it has less
specific gravity at 32° than at 46°. At 32° that which was a liquid
becomes a solid and still further suddenly expands its volume.
=The Cold of Ocean Bottoms.= Few have any idea of the enormous volume
of cold water that lies upon the surface of the earth, three fourths
of which is covered with oceans whose depths average two miles and
in many places are five miles. Below one mile in depth these oceans
are always at about the freezing point of salt water, which is 28°,
except in the tropics, where it is but little warmer, varying between
34° and 36°.
=How Temperatures of Inclosed Seas Differ from Those of Oceans.= We
will take the Red Sea as an example. It is 180 miles wide and extends
in a nearly north and south direction for 1450 miles, about one half
of it lying within the tropics. Evaporation takes place at a rapid
rate, but only the surface water of the Indian Ocean on the south
is able to enter to take the place of that which is lost, for a bar
or sill at the entrance, extending from the bottom to within twelve
hundred feet of the surface, separates the deep water of the sea from
that of the outside ocean. Its surface temperatures vary about as
the Indian Ocean, being 85° in summer and 70° in winter. Both bodies
of water decrease in temperature at about the same rate down to the
level of the sill, where the temperature remains constant the year
through at 70°. Here a marked difference occurs, for the sea, which
has a depth of 7200 feet, maintains the same temperature of 70° all
the way down to the bottom; while the ocean continues to decrease
in temperature down to a depth of about six thousand feet, where a
temperature of 34° to 36° prevails throughout the year. A similar
condition exists with relation to the Mediterranean and the Atlantic
Ocean. At the top of the sill, which is 1140 feet below the surface,
the temperature of both bodies is 55°, and this degree of heat is
maintained all the way down to the bottom of the Mediterranean,
while in the Atlantic Ocean, at the same depth as the bottom of the
Mediterranean, the temperature is only 35°.
=How the Temperature of Water Changes with Latitude, Season, and
Depth.= It is impossible to name a given temperature as prevailing
over bodies of water at all places on the same parallel of latitude,
because ocean currents soon move water heated in one latitude to a
higher or a lower position. At the equator the surface temperature is
between 82° and 84°; it changes less than one degree between day and
night, and not over five degrees between winter and summer; and below
twenty-four hundred feet there is no difference between the seasons,
the daily variation ceasing at less than a hundred feet. Below six
thousand feet the temperature is always near the freezing point of
fresh water.
In the middle latitudes the surface variation is from 50° in winter
to 68° in summer.
At latitude 70° N. the surface temperature has but a small daily
variation, and a yearly range of from 35° for winter to 45° for
summer; at a depth of twenty-four hundred feet it remains steady at
32°.
From this level there is a gradual decrease to a depth of six
thousand feet, where a constant temperature of 28° exists, and below
this there is no change. The temperature of Lake Superior decreases
down to a depth of two hundred forty feet, where a temperature of 39°
continues throughout the year, as it does downward for the remainder
of the distance to the bottom, which has an average depth of nine
hundred feet.
=Direction of Wind Affects Shore Temperature of Water.= Onshore winds
skim off the warm surface water and drive it shoreward, where it
banks up, and, pressing downward, causes the colder water beneath to
flow back seaward. In like manner, offshore winds blow off the top
water near the shore and send it out to sea, and colder water rises
to take its place.
=Great Heat of the Earth’s Interior.= We are ignorant of the
conditions of matter under the heating effect of the enormous
pressure that exists near the center of the earth, but it is probable
that pressure prevents it from changing from a solid to a liquid or a
gaseous form. The surface of the solid earth rises to a much higher
temperature as the solar rays fall upon it than does a water surface,
or the air immediately above, because it is a poor reflector, a poor
conductor, and a poor radiator, and when dry does not get any cooling
effect from evaporation. Solar heat ceases to be apparent at a depth
that varies with the latitude and the conditions of the soil with
regard to moisture and specific heat, but everywhere at less than
fifty feet.
At the poles and for some distance away the earth is covered with ice
or snow the entire year and is frozen to a considerable depth. In
the interior of Siberia and some parts of Alaska only a thin stratum
of soil thaws out under the heat of summer. Beginning at about fifty
feet, there is an increase of temperature downward, but it is not
the same for all places, varying from a degree for forty feet to a
degree for one hundred feet. Taking the average of the increase with
depth, water would boil at ninety-five hundred feet and the hardest
rock be molten at thirty miles. At a depth of 3490 feet near Berlin,
the temperature was found to be 116°, while it was only 108° at the
same depth at Wheeling, West Virginia, and in both places there is no
change from day to night or from winter to summer.
=Soil Usually Warmer Than Air Next Above.= In summer, June to August,
the bare, dry, top soil is warmer than the air ten feet above during
all hours of the day and night, at times the difference being as much
as forty degrees at midday. During winter, December to February, it
is slightly cooler, except between 9 A.M. and 3 P.M. when the excess
is seldom more than ten degrees. Evaporation from a wet soil lowers
its temperature below that of the air immediately above through the
rendering latent of a large quantity of heat. A melting snow surface
also is below the temperature of the air because of the heat employed
in changing the snow to the liquid form.
=Let Mother Earth Cool and Refresh You During the Heat of Summer.=
How little the average man realizes the possibilities for improving
his condition that lie close at hand. He does not know, or he is
indifferent to the fact, that only three feet from the surface of
the ground it is as cool at midday as at midnight, and that there is
no diurnal variation in temperature below that depth, and no annual
variation below a depth of from thirty to forty feet. If one were
to set down the temperature of each day, add the numbers at the end
of the year, and divide the sum by 365 the quotient would equal the
temperature always found at that place at a depth of about thirty
feet. The temperature of a deep-flowing spring is always about the
mean annual air temperature of the place. Here is health-giving
coolness for summer and warmth for winter of which one takes little
heed and derives practically no profit.
Remarkable, is it not? And these beneficent conditions are universal
and available for all, except to those crowded into congested centers
of population. The temperature is 54° in the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky
and shows no change from day to day and from winter to summer.
During the extreme heat of summer and the cold of winter many could
profitably, healthfully, and pleasantly live below ground. During
such periods the cellar of the house, which should be deep and
spacious, even extending beyond the dimensions of the edifice above,
if a continuous supply of pure air could be forced through it, or
natural ventilation accomplished by the plan outlined below, should
be the lounging, resting, and sleeping place of the occupants of the
household. It is not impossible or extremely difficult to change the
stagnant, moist, germ-laden, ill-smelling air of the average cellar,
in which it is positively dangerous to spend much time, into active,
pure, and delightfully healthful air,—air in which the worn and
weary worker from the heat of the farmer’s field, or the artisan and
the clerk from the debilitating temperatures of the factory and the
office could recuperate from the toil of the day, and from which they
would go forth each morning invigorated for another day’s efficient
service, instead of dragging weary limbs from hot, sleepless beds,
each morning less in energy than the day before. As is shown in
other parts of this book, the researches of Huntington have proven
conclusively that man is at his lowest physical and mental points of
efficiency, and more subject to the contraction of disease through
weakness, in midsummer and midwinter, and that the hotter the summer
and the colder the winter the less is his energy and the lower is his
power of resistance.
The whole problem is one of ventilation. While this is simple, it
must be scientifically done. The ideal location for a living cellar
is a hillside. It is easy to install ventilators in the roof of a
cellar no matter where located, but these are of no avail whatever
if there is not adequate air drainage at the bottom of the cellar.
From the cellar in a hillside a conduit can lead from the bottom
of the inclosure and have its opening at a lower level, thereby
accomplishing drainage and circulation, which are all-important in
the creating of a sanitary condition of air under the cool earth. For
each thousand cubic feet of cellar space there should project from
the roof, to a height of at least six feet above ground, a separate
ventilator shaft of at least one square foot cross-section dimension.
A like ventilating capacity should be provided from the bottom
outward to a lower level, but here two or more shafts may be combined
in one, so the proper capacity is secured. During the day the draft
will be upward through this system. But at night, except when the
wind is brisk, the direction of movement of the air is reversed, and
the cool air of the minimum temperature of night or early morning,
because of its greater density, drops down into the cellar. The
drainage shaft should be provided with a damper, which should be
closed in the early morning, about daybreak, entrapping the cold air
of night. The lower opening should be covered with wire netting, to
exclude small animals, and the whole construction be of concrete,
rendering it imperishable and rat-proof.
=Inexpensive but Efficient Cold Storage.= Such a sanitary cellar
as described above provides an excellent storage for fruits and
vegetables, comparing favorably with the much more expensive
artificial refrigeration. By an intelligent manipulation of the
damper in the lower shaft, cool storage may be provided for fruit and
other produce in the early fall, and protection secured against the
extreme cold of winter.
=Why Does Air Cool with Ascent and Heat with Descent?= If a mass of
air be elevated 183 feet it will be found to have lost one degree in
temperature, because there is less air above to exert pressure upon
it and it therefore expands to greater volume, and in the process
of expansion work is performed which employs heat and renders it
latent. One minute, one hour, or a thousand years thereafter, if this
same air be lowered to its former elevation, it will be compressed
into its previous dimensions and the heat energy that formerly was
employed to expand it will be restored to the sensible condition.
This ratio of 183 feet to one degree does not hold for any extended
movement, because, as soon as the dew point of the air is reached,
condensation in the form of cloud or rain occurs and the heat of
condensation is released; that is to say, the same quantity of heat
employed to create the water vapor at some previous time and thereby
rendered latent is now become sensible and partly makes up for the
loss by expansion as the air ascends. The average is therefore about
three hundred feet for one degree.
=Height of Freezing Cold in the Free Air.= The frost level remains
constant, winter and summer, over the equator at about eighteen
thousand feet. Elsewhere this level rises and falls with the seasons,
the amplitude of the movement increasing with latitude and being
greater over land than over water on the same parallel.
=Daily Range of Temperature in the Free Air.= The difference between
the temperature of day and that of night decreases with altitude
in the free air and ceases at about eight thousand feet. It is
greatest during clear weather and least in cloudy weather. Narrow
valleys may show a greater daily range than hilltops. When the sky
is clear, radiation from the hillsides may heat the air in a valley
to almost furnace heat at midday, while at night the air, coming in
contact with cool vegetation higher up, chills and, gaining in weight
by contraction, flows down and collects in the valley, making the
bottom of the valley warmer during day and colder during night than
the air above. Often moisture-laden winds precipitate much of their
water vapor as the air cools by expansion in passing over a mountain
range. These winds carry a comparatively dry air over to the leeward
side of the mountain, where the daily range of temperature will be
much greater than on the windward side at the same elevation. San
Francisco, where the prevailing winds come from the ocean, has a less
range than New York, where the predominating winds are from the land;
but New York is influenced by its proximity to the ocean, for its
range is much less than at Denver, in the interior of the continent.
The range is less on the east side of Lake Michigan than on the west
side, as it is with relation to all similar bodies of water.
=Man Soon Adjusts Himself to Changes in Altitude.= In Colonial days
it was noted that horses coming down from the mountains in North
Carolina ran swifter in the races the first day or two after changing
to a lower level. In going to a higher altitude an increase in the
number of red corpuscles in the blood enables it to absorb oxygen
more readily, and thus compensate for the loss in the density of the
air. Because of this gain in the chemical activities of the life
current, one feels a marked increase in strength on coming to a
lower level, but the gain lasts for only a short time before there
is a readjustment to former conditions. Persons with weak hearts may
not be able to live at an altitude of four thousand feet, and most
people experience inconvenience, at least, on first reaching ten
thousand feet; but nature is accommodating, and a number of large
cities prosper at altitudes of from one to two miles.
CHAPTER XI
HOW CLIMATE IS MODIFIED AND CONTROLLED
If the surface of the earth were all land, and the axis of the
earth’s rotation were perpendicular to the plane of the earth’s
orbit, the day and the night would be equal everywhere, and there
would be no seasons. There would be no wind, for the friction of the
air against the rotating earth would soon cause all levels of the
atmosphere to take up the exact easterly velocity of the solid body
below. The atmosphere would be contracted by cold and drawn downward
so as to have less depth at the poles than at any place having
latitude, and it would be deepest at the equator, where the direct
rays of the sun would expand it to an altitude of probably twice
what it could have at the poles. Centrifugal force—the force that
causes mud to fly off the rim of a swiftly rotating wagon wheel—would
further lower the height of the atmosphere at the poles and cause
it still more to extend outward at the equator. The atmosphere
would soon adjust itself to these constant conditions and forces and
thereafter remain at rest relative to the earth. There would be no
life, for there would be no vaporous atmosphere if the surface all
were without water. There would be extremely little heat to disturb
the atmosphere with motion, for the dry gases of the atmosphere are
practically diathermanous, and the heat of the sun would pass out
by radiation from the burnt and parched surface of the earth during
daytime without imparting more than a minute fraction of its energy
to the atmosphere; and at night the thin surface of the top soil that
had been heated to a furnace temperature during sunshine would be
quickly locked in the fastnesses of intense cold—probably 200° below
zero.
If we now incline the axis of our imaginary earth 23½°, we shall
introduce seasons whose only change, the one from the other, will be
in the duration of sunlight, as there is no water vapor to absorb
and utilize the sun’s rays in the initiation of motion and the
creation of storms. We are assuming that there would be enough heat
absorbed to prevent the atmosphere from liquefying, which it would
do at any temperature lower than 312° below zero. If the temperature
were to fall below the liquefying point of air, we would have the
singular phenomenon of the air expanding to a gas during daylight and
condensing to a liquid during nighttime, and, of course, that would
mean motion and winds, but of such a nature that one would hardly
dare speculate as to their peculiarities.
We introduce these hypothetical cases for the purpose of conveying a
clearer idea of the overlapping of conditions and the combinations of
forces that influence and control the seasons, the climate, and the
weather of the earth.
If the surface of the earth were all water and its axis perpendicular
to the plane of its orbit, the day and the night would everywhere
be equal and there would be no seasons. With a water surface there
would be an atmosphere nearly if not quite saturated with vapor of
water, in other words, of practically one hundred per cent. relative
humidity. It is doubtful if either animal or vegetable life could
exist; the first would die of internal heat, because a saturated air
would permit of no cooling by evaporation from the pores of the skin,
or from the tongue and mouth of animals that do not perspire; and
the second could not grow without the chemical action of sunshine,
which is a necessary part of the laboratory of the leaf of every
growing plant, the sunshine acting upon the green granular matter
which constitutes the chlorophyll of the plant. There would be little
difference between the temperature of day and of night—probably not
more than one degree. As the earth would everywhere and at all times
be covered with a deep stratum of cloud there would be little loss of
heat to space by radiation and the temperature would be excessive,
rising in the tropics to near the boiling point. We will assume that
the atmosphere would reach a stable and unchanged condition of great
heat and humidity and be without motion or precipitation.
If now we incline the axis of this water-covered earth and introduce
the complication of seasons, we shall not only have variation in the
hours of sunshine, increasing as we go from the equator toward the
poles, but, the capacity of air for moisture being less and less with
falling temperature, we shall have downpours of rain as the summer
slowly merges into fall and the latter into winter. Although the air
will be saturated, there probably will be no rainfall from the time
when the temperature begins to rise after midwinter until it reaches
and passes the maximum heat of summer. It is fair to assume that
during the rainy period there will be cyclonic storms with torrential
precipitation, and that the anti-cyclones that are a necessary
concomitant of cyclones, while they may cause a temporary cessation
of precipitation in the area that they cover, by the dynamic heating
of the air in their downward motions, will be ineffective in fully
clearing away the clouds from a water-covered earth. It is doubtful
if such an earth would be suitable for life,—certainly not for man.
=The Real Earth of Land, Water, and Inclined Axis.= The different
manner in which land and water surfaces absorb, radiate, and reflect
the heat from the sun has a profound influence on climate, which also
is modified by latitude, elevation above sea level, elevation above
a valley or above a surrounding plane, direction of wind, height and
trend of direction of hills and mountains, the position of lakes and
inland seas, the relative position and magnitude of continents and
oceans, storm tracks, and ocean currents.
=Influence of Continents and Oceans on Climate.= Charts 1 and 2
(pages 99 and 100), constructed from observations taken on ships and
on land, for a long series of years, show certain Highs and Lows
of vast extent, sometimes called “Centers of Action”, because they
do not travel across continents and oceans, as do the migrating
Highs and Lows that cause weather. Rather do they slowly reverse
their relative positions between winter and summer. Continents
cool by radiation in winter more rapidly than do oceans; the air
contracts, settles down and grows denser and air flows in at the top
from the oceans and outward at the surface of the earth toward the
oceans; thus is built up the winter Highs, or centers of action, on
continents. Continents heat up by absorption in summer more rapidly
than do oceans; the air expands, rises, and flows away in the upper
levels to oceans and flows in at the bottom from the oceans; and
thus are the Lows, or centers of action, established on continents
in summer. It is apparent that these processes must be reversed for
the oceans, and that the Highs will be found there in the summer and
the Lows in the winter. Carefully follow the illustrations of these
principles by examining the whole region north of the equator on
Charts 1 and 2.
In the Southern Hemisphere there is not such a pronounced shifting
of the Highs and the Lows from oceans to continents and back again,
with change in the seasons, as there is in the Northern Hemisphere,
because of the small area of land in comparison with that of water;
but in the midst of the southern summer, which occurs in January
(Chart 2), Lows are shown over South America, Africa, and Australia.
Note how the winds blow out of all the Highs and into all the Lows.
Also observe that the winds generally blow from about latitude 30°
north and south towards the equator, due to the great heat of the
tropics, which causes the air to rise and in the high levels to flow
northward and southward, settling down to the earth again through
the belts of high pressure that irregularly encircle the earth at
latitudes 30° north and south.
In the interior of continents the temperature falls lower at night
and rises higher during the day, and falls lower in winter and
rises higher in summer than on any of their coasts. On the coast of
central California, for instance, the ocean is so cool in summer
and the winds blow so steadily from it that the thermometer ranges
between 55° and 70°, even when there are temperatures of over 100°
but a few hundred miles away in the great interior valleys, or on
the broad plateaus of the mountains. New York and Boston, in nearly
the same latitude, also have their summer temperatures modified by
ocean influence, but they are on the east side of a broad continent,
where the prevailing westerly winds give to them more the character
of a continental climate than one marine; but occasionally the east
wind, for a short time, gives to them the modifying influence of
the ocean. In the winter the influence of the oceans is to modify the
extremes of cold, the same as they do the excessive heat of summer.
[Illustration: CHART 12.—AVERAGE MAXIMUM TEMPERATURE FOR JULY
(Henry).]
Chart 8 (page 129) showing the lowest temperatures ever recorded at
Weather Bureau stations, and Chart 12, presenting the average of
the highest daily temperatures of July, graphically show, clearer
than any text can describe, the influence of continents and oceans
on climate. On the Atlantic the average maximum of day varies from
70° on the Maine coast to 85° on the coast of North Carolina; while
on the Pacific, where the marine influence is stronger, the average
is from 65° on the Washington coast to 80° on the coast of southern
California. But near the center of the United States where the
continental influence predominates, the average of the highest daily
temperatures varies from 85° to 90°. On Chart 8, showing the lowest
temperatures, the line of 20° below zero passes through Boston,
southwest to Chattanooga, west to Flagstaff, Arizona, and then
irregularly north to Seattle, showing the influence of both oceans in
carrying the line northward.
[Illustration: CHART 13.—OCEAN CURRENTS.]
Because of the vast extent of the Eurasian (Europe and Asia)
continent the difference between continental and marine climates is
more marked than in the Western Hemisphere. Huntington and Cushing,
in their splendid work on “Principles of Human Geography”,[3] make
a comparison between the southern Lofoten Islands, off the coast
of Norway, and Verkhoyansk in Siberia, which probably furnish the
greatest contrast to be found anywhere between places of the same
latitude. Although both are inside the Arctic Circle, the influence
of the Atlantic Ocean with its warm-water currents coming all the way
from the tropics (Chart 13) protects the Lofoten Islands from the
extreme cold that otherwise would come to them; vegetation remains
green and cattle are pastured every month in the year. But the ocean
retains nearly the same temperature in summer as in winter, and
as a result the Islands are too cold to grow trees or many crops.
Verkhoyansk is so different that one can scarcely believe that both
places are in the same latitude. At the Siberian town the winter
temperature falls to 70° or 80° below zero every winter, and has
been known to register 90° below zero. It is said that steel skates
often will not “take hold” but slip sideways as well as forward on
the surface of the excessively cold ice. This doubtless is due to
the fact that under ordinary winter cold the weight of the skater
melts a thin film of water under the edge of the skate, which freezes
instantly when the skate passes and relieves the pressure. But here
the cold is so intense that the weight of no skater is sufficient
to lubricate his movements with water molecules. Remarkable to
relate, the summer at Verkhoyansk is warmer than in the islands
off the Norwegian coast, due to the rapidity with which the land
surface warms up under the action of the solar rays in the midst of
a continental area remote from water, 75° to 80° frequently being
recorded during the long summer days. The ground never thaws for more
than a foot or so, but a number of crops are successfully grown.
In the interior of a continent like that of Siberia or of North
America not only the changes from season to season but from day to
night are extreme; while in mid-ocean the diurnal and the annual
range of temperature is small, day and night, winter and summer being
much the same. A place is influenced by the ocean in proportion to
its distance from the sea, the presence or the absence of hills or
mountains between the place and the water, and by the fact that the
prevailing winds come from or go to the ocean. Cities as far inland
as Baltimore and Philadelphia have their extremes of temperature
somewhat modified by the Atlantic Ocean, and if it were not for the
Coastal and the Sierra Nevada Mountains the influence of the Pacific
Ocean would be felt at least as far inland as Denver, and the great
Rocky Mountain plateau would be one of the garden plots of the world.
The influence of the Pacific would reach inland farther than now
does the Atlantic because of the prevailing westward drift of the
atmosphere in all middle latitudes.
=Exaggeration of the Forest Influence on Climate.= Chapter XIII,
on Change of Climate, shows more in detail the process whereby
the sun lifts up the water vapor from the Gulf of Mexico and the
Atlantic Ocean and how cyclonic storms draw this vaporous atmosphere
northwestward far into the interior of the continent, the Alleghany
Mountains not being high enough to offer serious obstruction.
The writer would again caution the reader not to be misled by any
pseudoscientist, no matter how worthy his purpose may be, who
would teach that the operations of men in changing forest areas
to cultivated fields, gardens, villages, and cities, has in the
slightest degree harmfully affected the climate, or augmented floods
or intensified droughts. A field of grass, of wheat, of corn; an
orchard of fruit; a highway bordered with towering, majestic oaks
and elms; or a grove of cultivated trees about a prosperous home
is just as beneficial to the climate as the thickest and most
impenetrable forest and far more pleasing to the eye and helpful to
mankind. Forests should be protected, conserved, and grown because we
need timber, not because a lot of foolish people are writing nonsense
about them.
=Influence of Lakes and Rivers.= With the exception of contributing
to the formation of occasional fogs over their surfaces and the
adjacent low lands, through the rising of warm water vapor into
the cold air that often collects at the bottom of valleys during
nighttime, rivers exercise little influence on climate. Lakes exert
a modifying influence on the temperature of places near their shores
but only for a few miles therefrom, and they are too small to exert
any appreciable influence on rainfall. If one examine charts showing
the average rainfall for the United States by seasons, he will
observe that the amount gradually shades off as the distance from
the Gulf or Ocean increases, without any relation whatever to the
five Great Lakes. Deserts exist on either side of the Caspian Sea,
although it slightly increases the rain of the Elburz Mountains to
the south. If these great bodies of water do not influence the
rainfall, how ridiculous to assume that the changing of forest areas
to other forms of vegetation possibly can affect precipitation or
influence droughts. Stress is laid on the fact that some land is left
bare and then is eroded into deep gullies. This is true, but the
fault is one that may be corrected by a proper system of plowing and
cultivation. And at most the area so eroded is so infinitesimal in
comparison to the vast regions changed from forests to growing crops
as to be negligible.
[Illustration: CHART 14.—MEAN ANNUAL ISOTHERMS (Buchan).]
=Influence of Ocean Currents on Climate.= Climates are markedly
influenced by the currents of oceans. Charts 15 and 16 show the
normal wind circulations of the globe; note that the centers of the
great swirls are coincident with the location of the High and the
Low centers of action located on Charts 1 and 2. Next observe Chart
13, showing the ocean currents, and it will be seen at once how
closely the circulation of the great ocean currents follows that of
the winds, due to the friction of the air upon the water, and to
the interposition of bodies of land that turn about or deflect the
currents.
[Illustration: CHART 15.—NORMAL WIND DIRECTION AND VELOCITY FOR
JANUARY AND FEBRUARY (Köppen).]
[Illustration: CHART 16.—NORMAL WIND DIRECTION AND VELOCITY FOR JULY
AND AUGUST (Köppen).]
Water has a greater capacity for heat than nearly any other
substance. It requires ten times the quantity of heat to raise a
pound of water one degree that it does a pound of iron. The
oceans therefore store up vast quantities of the heat of the sun
and, unlike the continents, distribute this heat northward and
southward without regard to latitude. Much of the heat of the tropics
is thus transported far northward and southward from the equator.
The extensive eddy-like circulation of the south half of the North
Atlantic Ocean sends currents northward along the coast of the United
States which set eastward at latitude 40°. A part of these reach
the coast of Spain and then turn south; the greater part spread out
in mid-ocean and move northeast, bathing the coasts of the British
Islands, Iceland, and Norway. They still retain some of the heat that
they absorbed from a tropical sun, and they therefore give to the
coasts that they reach a higher temperature than they would have if
the ocean waters were moving from the north, or than they would have
if there were no currents at all. On Chart 14 note how the isothermal
lines are carried northward by these currents as they cross the
Atlantic Ocean. The Gulf Stream mingles with these northeast currents
but adds little to their temperatures, for the general ocean
circulation would produce practically the same effects if there were
no Gulf Stream.
Follow the currents down the coast of Spain and of northeast Africa;
then note on Chart 14 the southward trend of the lines of equal
temperature, as the currents bring colder water southward to cool the
air. Next examine the currents of the Pacific and the isothermals.
The currents moving northward towards the equator along the west
coast of South America, and those moving southward, also toward the
equator, along the west coast of the United States and Mexico cause
a bulging of the isothermal lines from the positions that they would
occupy if there were no currents coming from colder regions.
=Influence of the Gulf Stream on Climate.= From either side of the
equator the surface winds (Charts 15 and 16) blow the water westward,
causing what are known as the “Equatorial Currents” (Chart 13).
The eastward projection of the coast of South America divides the
Atlantic equatorial current into two parts; one goes south along
the coast of South America and sets up the circulation in the South
Atlantic, which sweeps north along the southwest coast of Africa. The
other passes to the northwest, a part setting up the North Atlantic
circulation and the remainder sweeping through the Windward Islands
and storing itself in the Gulf of Mexico, whence it is driven out
at a velocity of some five miles per hour through the narrow channel
between Key West and Cuba. Here it has a depth of half a mile and a
width of forty miles. Its velocity is accelerated because it enters
the Gulf in a broad sweep and passes out through a constricted
channel. It retains its individuality as a warm river passing through
the ocean because of its greater velocity and higher temperature than
the waters in which it finds itself soon after it leaves the Gulf;
but it gradually merges with the great Atlantic circulation as it
passes to the middle of the ocean. It is the opinion of the writer
that its influence on climate has been exaggerated, that the warming
of Europe that is credited to the Gulf Stream is accomplished by
the mere presence of the ocean to the westward and to the general
circulation of that ocean without regard to the wonderful phenomenon
known as the Gulf Stream.
=Effect of Valleys on Day and Night Temperatures.= Valleys affect
temperatures in proportion to their depth and width. A deep, narrow
valley might have the effect illustrated by Figure 27, if the time
were summer and the sky clear. During the daytime radiation would
warm the interior so that the bottom of the valley would have a much
higher temperature than the free air at the top of the valley, and
the movement of the air would be sluggishly down the center and up
the sides of the depression. During nighttime all the conditions
would be reversed. Vegetation, losing heat by radiation much faster
than the air, would cool the latter as it came in contact with the
sides of the valley. The air would slowly descend along the sides
through gain in specific gravity and collect at the bottom with a
temperature much lower than it had when it started its descent.
[Illustration: FIGURE 27. Summer day temperature in a narrow valley.
Summer night temperature in the same valley.]
=Effect of Mountains on Climate.= The rarity of the atmosphere of
mountains readily allows the rays of the sun to pass through it and
thus the surface of mountains is quickly warmed, but the same
conditions permit a rapid radiation at night, so that there are
considerable extremes of temperature. Air cooled by contact with a
mountain may flow down its sides at night and collect in depressions
below, often causing frost on still nights where the temperature
higher up is much above freezing. Mountains may be more cloudy and
rainy than plains, for the currents of air that cross them must rise,
and in rising they cool by expansion and often reach the dew point
of the air, moisture being precipitated in the form of clouds, rain,
or snow. Often a peak is constantly capped with a crown of clouds.
Mountains may intercept vapor-bearing winds from oceans, force them
to such an elevation that their vapor is largely precipitated on the
windward side of the mountain, and receive them on the leeward side
as dry, rainless winds. Vast desert areas are often the result. A
good example is presented in the case of the Pacific coast mountains
and the desert plateau to the east.
Mountain peaks may be covered with snow, even though they be located
in the tropics, if their elevation be sufficient. This is because the
absorption of both incoming and outgoing radiation is so much greater
in the lower reaches of the atmosphere, where the water vapor is
densest. Wherever observations have been made they have shown that
the temperature of the air on high mountain peaks and crests and for
a distance of one to three hundred feet above them is cooler than
adjacent free air of the same height, due to upward deflection of air
currents and their cooling by expansion, and to radiation from the
peak.
The Himalayan Mountains exercise a profound effect on the climate of
Asia. The monsoon (any wind that alternates annually in direction
or force) of summer brings the moist air from the Bay of Bengal and
precipitates torrential rains from it as it ascends to higher and
higher elevations in passing over the great heights of the mountains.
At a place four thousand feet above the sea and not distant from
Calcutta, the annual rainfall is 466 inches, while the average for
most of the region east of the Mississippi River is only forty
inches. More than forty inches have been known to fall in one day in
the Himalayan Mountains. As in the case of all very high mountains,
the rainfall increases in these mountains up to a certain elevation
and then decreases. North of the mountains the monsoon passes into
the interior of Asia with withering dryness and vast deserts are the
result.
[Illustration: FIG. 28.—Average Monthly Temperature and Rainfall of
Typical Places in North America. (Huntington and Cushing.)]
Figure 28 graphically presents the average monthly temperature and
rainfall of typical places in North America, and Figure 29 of places
in the Old World. Here may be seen every phase of climate from
tropical to temperate and to cold, and from marine to continental.
By studying the winds on Charts 15 and 16 and the ocean currents on
Chart 13, the reader should be able to find an explanation for the
different conditions shown. For example: Mazatlan and Vera Cruz are
both on the coast of Mexico, the first on the west and the latter on
the east. Each has a rainy period in the summer, but at Vera Cruz the
rain begins earlier and lasts later and is much heavier. The reason
is that they both have north winds in winter (Charts 15 and 16), but
in summer Vera Cruz receives winds direct from the Gulf of Mexico and
at Mazatlan the winds continue to blow from the north, with but a
slight inclination landward. Again, the explanation for the fact that
Mazatlan has a monthly range of temperature from 60° in winter to 80°
in summer, while Vera Cruz has a range of only 70° to 80° is found in
the wind direction.
[Illustration: FIG. 29.—Average Monthly Temperatures and Rainfall
of Typical Places in the Old World. (From “Principles of Human
Geography.” John Wiley & Sons.)]
The City of Mexico is wonderfully favored by climate. Here a moderate
rainfall occurs from May to September. The oceans are not far distant
on either side, as distances are measured continentally, but its
great elevation on a table-land relieves it of the torrential rains
usual to the tropics; and yet it is close enough to marine influence
so that its air has not the nerve-irritating dryness of the
plateau of the Rocky Mountains, and it has a remarkable evenness of
temperature between winter and summer, with a monthly range between
50° and 60°. Its range between day and night is sufficient to be
stimulating.
Still looking at Figure 28, note the remarkable similarity between
the climate of Pittsburgh and Toronto. Each has about the same
rainfall and it is almost equally distributed throughout the months
of the year. The only difference is that Toronto is a little colder.
St. Paul and Kansas City, typical of the climate in the interior
cities, have a small amount of precipitation in winter, considerable
in summer, and a wide range of temperature; while the Pacific coast
cities have dry summers, and winters that vary from three inches of
rain at Los Angeles to fourteen inches at Astoria, with no excesses
in temperature.
=Temperatures Aloft in the Atmosphere.= Kite and balloon observations
have not been continued long enough, nor have they been made at
a sufficient number of places, to give one the data from which
the climate of any considerable altitude in the free air may be
determined, but from a large number of free balloon observations made
with self-recording instruments, in the middle latitudes of this and
foreign countries, Figure 1 (page 12) has been constructed, which
shows the manner in which the temperature decreases with elevation up
to eighteen kilometers (eleven miles). Note how rapidly it falls with
elevation up to eleven and a half kilometers (about seven miles).
This depth of air measures the thickness of the turbulent stratum in
which cyclones and anti-cyclones operate. At its top the temperature
always is about 64° below zero in winter and 70° below in summer.
And right here occurs a most wonderful phenomenon,—one of which
scientists were entirely ignorant less than two decades ago. At first
it was thought that there was something wrong with the recording
thermometers, for they failed to register falling temperature
with gaining altitude after the storm stratum was passed at seven
miles. Then it was noted that all instruments displayed the same
peculiarity, and the “Isothermal Stratum” (equally heated region)
was discovered, in which the temperature maintains the same degree
of intense cold so far as exploration had been made. From Mount
Weather, under the direction of the writer, a balloon was flown to
nineteen and one tenth miles before it exploded and sent a parachute
gently down to earth with its precious record. This flight showed
practically no change in temperature after the isothermal stratum was
reached. (See Chapter III.) One is reasonably safe in assuming that
there is no oxygen beyond an altitude of thirty miles and that at
fifty miles the nitrogen becomes inappreciable, and that, therefore,
the temperature must shade away to practically nothing when the
void of outer space is reached, notwithstanding the presence of the
newly-discovered isothermal stratum nearer the earth.
CHAPTER XII
CIVILIZATION FOLLOWS THE STORM TRACKS
THE MOST DOMINANT RACES—THOSE THAT BEST CO-ORDINATE THE MENTAL
AND PHYSICAL FACULTIES—ARE FOUND TO EXIST UNDER CERTAIN CLIMATIC
CONDITIONS—CHANGE THE CLIMATE AND YOU CHANGE THE MAN
In a climate where man needs little protection from the elements,
where he may lie upon his back in the shade and with his bare toes
pick wild growing fruit to nourish his body, one will find no great
leaders in art, literature, science, statecraft, or industry;
likewise, in the Arctic, where man simply gathers enough blubber to
supply his animal wants and then burrows beneath the snows of fierce
winters, one will not find leadership or creative genius. The regions
of greatest human potential are limited to such portions of the
temperate zone as have an abundance of rainfall, frequent changes in
the weather, and an alluvial soil. In other words, the most perfect
composite of human resourcefulness is found where nature is neither
so fierce as to crush human aspiration, nor yet so gentle as to lull
human desire.
Humboldt says: “Man is the product of soil and climate; he is brother
to the tree, the rocks, and the animals.” We shall endeavor to show
that civilization and the greatest human potential follow the storm
tracks of the world, and that climate is the most important factor
in his environment, for without its proper adjustment to his needs
the richest soil and the most beneficent form of government fail to
bring out the best that is in him. Empire is determined as much by
direction and force of the wind and changes in the weather as by the
scheming of politicians, the deep-laid plans of diplomats, or the
marshaling of battalions.
The first thing that vigorous man requires is active atmospheric
conditions and in his migrations he follows the climatic lines that
appease his desires. A climate of little change between day and
night and between winter and summer is soothing and at the same time
deadening to the human faculties; but changes should be frequent
rather than violent. The daring, the creative, the pioneering, the
persistent spirits of mankind, like snow birds showering themselves
with icy crystals, revel in the cool air, the perpetual oscillations
of temperature, and the frequent changes from sunshine to cloud that
pertain to the regions where storms are most numerous.
Some days the mind works with a joyous lucidity, the spirits are
high and the step elastic and vigorous. On another day the mind is
turbid; it works slowly and hesitates in reaching decisions; one is
listless and lacking in physical energy. On both days one may be in
a perfectly normal physical and mental condition, except for the
effects of the weather.
Under the direction of the writer, comparison of the records of
crimes of violence with the weather records, by officials of the U.
S. Weather Bureau, showed a marked increase of crime of this sort
during midsummer as against midwinter, and the extremely hot summer
showed more crime than the cool ones. During recent years Ellsworth
Huntington has made exhaustive and extremely valuable studies of
the records of piece workers in factories and elsewhere from New
England and the Middle Atlantic States down to Florida and the Gulf
of Mexico, and also of the mental activities of the cadets at West
Point and Annapolis, and of the students in colleges, as shown by
their recitation markings.[4] He has compared these records with
the weather day by day and hour by hour and definitely shown a
direct relation between variations in the meteorological conditions
and human efficiency. He finds that people’s health and strength
are greatest when the temperature falls to between 56° and 60° at
night and rises to somewhere between 68° and 72° during the day. He
has determined the optimum, or, in other words, the meteorological
conditions best suited to man’s health, happiness, and efficiency.
For mental activity the optimum temperature is much lower than for
physical. People’s minds are more alert, they reason with greater
analytic precision, they have greater confidence in their decisions
and they are more optimistic, when the temperature falls to about
freezing at night and rises to 45° or 50° during the day. Except for
limited activities, the most efficient man is the one in whom the
mental and physical faculties are most perfectly coördinated. Broadly
speaking, this agreement may be best accomplished during times when
the daily temperature ranges between 45° and 65°.
Excessive humidity in midsummer—eighty per cent. or over—is harmful
and adds enormously to the death rate; on the other hand, some of the
worst colds may come from extreme dryness in summer. It may be found
feasible to dry the air in sleeping and living rooms in summer when
the humidity is too high, by closing the apartment and forcing the
air over or through calcium carbide or melting ice and salt. When the
air is kept at 65 to 70 per cent. humidity in winter one will feel
comfortable in a much lower temperature—about 68°—than when the air
is extremely dry, as it usually is in the average living apartment.
With a relative humidity of 30 to 40 per cent. which one now often
finds in warm houses in winter, the temperature may be forced up
to 75° or over and still one may feel cold, because of the rapid
evaporation from the pores of the skin, and the cold created inside
the clothing by the heat lost in the process of evaporation. Bear in
mind that perspiration is going on at all temperatures, even if one
is unconscious of the fact.
In the most populous portions of the United States there are two
periods of maximum efficiency and two of minimum each year. Let us
consider that wonderful region including southern New England, the
Middle Atlantic States, the Ohio Valley, and westward to the Rocky
Mountains. Again referring to the records of Huntington we find that
human energy is greatest in October; the output of factory, mine, and
counting room is greater per man than at any other time of the year
and the product of mental effort is greater and of higher quality.
Likewise disease is less and the death rate the least. From this time
there is a loss in energy until January or February, when vitality
and efficiency may have dropped twenty to thirty per cent. Then there
is a gain until May or early June, when the conditions of health and
efficiency are nearly equal to the most favorable time of the year
in October. Again there is a loss until the middle of July, when a
second minimum occurs; physical and mental energy are at a low ebb
and the death rate is high. Diseases are not quite the same as in
winter, as stomach troubles are more common than colds. The hotter
the summer and the colder the winter the less favorable are the
conditions of human existence.
As there is a certain optimum beyond which diurnal and annual range
of temperature cannot increase without a loss in energy, so there
is a limitation in latitude beyond which the favorable climatic
conditions decrease as one goes northward or southward. As an
example, Canada and northern Maine have but one unfavorable period,
which is the entire winter. The people of these regions are at their
greatest potential July to September, after which they show a steady
decline as the severity of the northern winter draws upon their
vitality, until in January and February their minimum is below that
of regions considerably farther south for the same period.
From the most favorable climatic area in the middle latitudes—and
the entire world possesses none more favorable or of greater extent
than that possessed by the United States—the loss of health and
strength due to the enervating effects of heat, high humidity, and
insufficient temperature oscillations increases as one goes toward
the equator. In Florida and the southern third of the Gulf States
there is but one favorable period, the short winter. The enervating
conditions still further are manifest as one proceeds farther
southward.
In the “Principles of Human Geography”, it is stated that “in Central
France and Southern Germany the seasonal variations in health and
strength are much the same as in Boston, New York, Cleveland, and
Detroit. That is, people are most healthy and strong in October
and early November and again in May and early June, while they are
weakest and most subject to disease in January, February, and early
March, and again in July and August. Farther north, for example,
in Scotland, Scandinavia, and Finland, the summer is the best time
of the whole year and the winter the worst. To the south, on the
contrary, in Italy, Spain, and Greece, the harmful effect of the
winter decreases and that of summer increases, until finally on the
south side of the Mediterranean the winter is much the best time of
the whole year, while the long summer greatly diminishes the people’s
efficiency and increases disease and death.”
As the highest mental activity is coincident with temperatures lower
than those that induce the greatest physical energy, it naturally
follows that in the Ohio Valley, southern New England, and the Middle
Atlantic States the mental worker is at his maximum in November
instead of October, and April instead of May.
[Illustration: CHART 17.—MAP OF CLIMATIC ENERGY. (Huntington and
Cushing.)]
Chart 17 shows how human energy would be distributed over the earth
if it depended on climate alone. It is remarkable how almost exactly
it agrees with what we know to be the distribution of the great
political power. Japan is meant to be included in the region of high
power, but the scale of the chart is too small to make this plain.
[Illustration: CHART 18.—DENSITY OF POPULATION IN THE UNITED STATES,
1910.]
From the time when man began to lose his tribal instinct and to
assume national consciousness, in Egypt, the Mesopotamian Valley,
and the region between the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf, he
has been founding empires of more or less enduring nature, and
with few exceptions has builded towards the west, in the face of
the prevailing winds. The center of Empire has steadily migrated
along the paths of greatest storm frequency. Examine Charts 10, 11,
and 18 and note the relation between density of population and the
closeness of the storm tracks. The figures at the center of each
brace indicate the number of storms that originated in the region of
the brace during a ten-year period, and the lines leading from the
brace show the tracks followed by the centers of the storms. Bear
in mind that each storm covered an area of from five hundred to one
thousand miles in diameter, that it was a vast rotating eddy in the
atmosphere, and that its center of rotation followed one of these
storm tracks. Twelve storms came from the West Indies during these
ten Augusts, fifty-seven from the Rocky Mountains and none from the
Pacific Ocean; while in the ten Januaries none came from the West
Indies and but twenty-two from the Pacific Ocean. But the point to
which your attention is directed is that, no matter what the origin,
the tendency of each storm was to move towards the Ohio Valley,
Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and New England. This tendency
gives to these regions the most frequent changes in weather, with
alternations of sunshine and clouds, and changes in temperature and
air pressure—conditions essential to the development of the greatest
human potential. Here population is the densest, civilization the
highest, and the products of man’s brain and hand greater and more
diversified than elsewhere in this country, and probably than
elsewhere in the world. The United States is abundantly blessed, for
nearly its entire area is under the influence of high atmospheric
potential. Only the region adjacent to the Gulf of Mexico and the
southwest is outside of the favored area, and here the conditions are
charted as medium, and not poor; at least not poor in comparison with
many more purely tropical regions.
To-day the Empire of Human Greatness is centered over the United
States, that is to say, greatness as expressed in material wealth,
population, and homogeneously knit political institutions. Will it
continue its westward migration, or will it remain here indefinitely
for the working out of a civilization higher than yet has come to any
of the nations of the past, or to other of those of the present? So
far as atmospheric activities have to do with its translation from
place to place, we may derive comfort from the fact that storm tracks
do not cross the Pacific Ocean as freely as they do the Atlantic.
In fact our Rocky Mountains are a barrier to the passage of summer
storms (Chart 10) and a reference to Chart 11 will show that of
ninety-five winter storms that crossed our continent during the ten
Januaries of which the chart is a record only twenty-two came into
our area from the Pacific; and we know that these twenty-two largely
originated off our coast somewhere between Hawaii and the Aleutian
Islands. Let us hope that the center of earthly power has reached the
end of its westward journey and that here it shall remain, always
to exercise a just and beneficent influence upon the less favored
portions of the earth.
Enough has been said to indicate that climate is nearly as important
to animal life as it is to the vegetable existence, and that a cold
climate, if it be not so extreme as to limit the production of cereal
crops, and has frequent changes in temperature, pressure, sunshine,
and cloud, favors the development of hardy and resourceful races
of men; in fact, that no dominating race can exist without such
stimulating conditions of climate.
CHAPTER XIII
HAS OUR CLIMATE CHANGED?
POPULAR OPINION ERRONEOUS, AS THERE IS NO CHANGE WITHIN THE
PERIOD OF AN INDIVIDUAL LIFE, BUT MOMENTOUS CHANGES HAVE OCCURRED
SINCE THE BEGINNING OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA
One of the hallucinations entertained by nearly every adult person
is that the climate has changed since he was young. No matter what
the scientists may say, he knows that it has changed. Fifty years
ago did he not trudge to school for months every winter in snow
knee-deep? Have not the old swimming holes in the brook dried up?
Yes, he is a positive witness to an affirmative answer. Even the
river of his boyhood, whose broad expanse he conquered in a swimming
contest at the tender age of ten—as he views it after an absence of
a quarter-century—has dwindled to little more than a creek, across
which one easily may hurl a stone. Talk to him about no change in
climate. He’s been right on the spot, and knows. For all this, there
has been no change during the lifetime of this man; nor has there
ever been during the life period of any individual. Mutations, to be
sure, are going on all the time, but they are so minute that they do
not accumulate a measurable quantity except in periods of hundreds or
thousands of years. It is not the climate that has changed; it is the
man. The natural action of the stream may have filled the swimming
holes; or the stream may have entirely disappeared through much of
the contiguous area being brought under cultivation and the water
that formerly supplied its flow being utilized in the production of
cultivated crops, which actually make use of as much if not more
rainfall than the forest that formerly lined its sinuous banks and
covered the near-by lowland. And then, snow knee-deep to a boy of ten
hardly comes up to the ankles of a man of six feet two. Again, no one
can remember the climate of his boyhood; he cannot carry the average
in his mind; all that he can remember are a few instances of unusual
conditions which because of their unusual character left an impress
upon his mind. The river is just as wide as it ever was during the
period of his lifetime, or that of his father, or of his grandfather;
but he has lived on the broad Mississippi for many years, and when
he goes back to the scenes of his youth, his concept of what
constitutes a river has undergone a revolutionary change since he
left the parental roof to go forth and conquer the world.
An examination of the personal papers of Thomas Jefferson, in the
State Department at Washington, by an official of the Weather Bureau,
revealed a number of most interesting incidents in connection with
the weather observations made by the author of the Declaration of
American Independence. He says:
“A change in climate is taking place very sensibly. Both heats
and colds are becoming much more moderate within the memory of
even the middle-aged. Snows are less frequent and less deep. They
do not often lie below the mountains more than one, two, or three
days, and very rarely a week. The snows are remembered to have
been more frequent, deep, and of long continuance. The elderly
inform me that the earth used to be covered with snow about three
months in every year.”
But Jefferson and his neighbors were mistaken. Never during the
period of authentic history has the snow covered the ground in
Virginia an average of three months per year, or three months for a
single year. These old inhabitants were like those of to-day, who
remember only the abnormalities of climate of twenty-five or fifty
years ago, and in comparing the unusual conditions of long ago with
the average of the present time they are deceived. I have known
intelligent and well-meaning persons to declare that they knew from
personal recollection that the climate of their particular places of
residence had changed since they were young; that they had stable
landmarks to show that the streams were drying up, the rainfall
growing less, and the winters becoming milder, notwithstanding the
fact that carefully taken observations of temperature and rainfall
for each day for over one hundred years right at their places of
abode showed no change in climate. We have a continuous daily record
for one hundred years at New Bedford, Massachusetts, nearly as long
records at several other places, and numerous records for over half a
century. From these we learn that there has been no definite change
in climate in this country during the past hundred years. There
have been variations, such as an excess or a deficiency of rainfall
over a considerable area, that have persisted for several years at
a time; but in each case the conditions would ultimately come back
to normal, or more often to an extreme of the opposite tendency to
what had obtained immediately before. In sections where the rainfall
in bountiful years is barely sufficient for good crops, the people
in the past have been prone to consider that the amount that they
receive during the periods of excess is that which normally is due
them, and thus to be unprepared for the dry periods that statistics
tell us must certainly come. The matter of change of climate is
most important to our sub-arid West,—to the western parts of Texas,
Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas. Some years ago, when the
tide of emigration was strong into these regions, there were several
years of more than the average rainfall. The coming of population
and the coming of extra rainfall were accidentally coincident, but
that fact was probably responsible for the popular belief that
civilization brings an increase in precipitation; that the breaking
of the virgin soil, making it more permeable to the absorption of
moisture; the planting of trees and the growth of crops, restricting
the run-off; the roots of the new vegetable life drawing up the
moisture from below the surface of the ground and transpiring it
to the air through the leaves of plants; the enormous quantities
of water vapor ejected into the air by the combustion necessarily
incident to a considerable population,—all had combined to increase
the rainfall and render the sub-arid plains more responsive to
the efforts of the husbandman. No one can fail to regret that this
theory is not founded upon fact. But a moment’s thought by the
scientist will indicate to him that the volume of air is so great,
and under the heat of the growing period its capacity for moisture so
enormous, that the addition of vapor of water by the processes herein
described, great though it be, is ineffectual to appreciably change
the amount of the rainfall that nature beforehand had ordained should
be precipitated.
The size of continental areas, the height and the trend of mountain
ranges, the proximity of large bodies of water, and the direction
of the prevailing winds are the factors that determine the amount
of the precipitation of a region. Against these the puny efforts of
man, stupendous though we think them to be, are entirely unavailing.
As an illustration: If the Rocky Mountains were as old as the
Appalachian Chain, and if they were eroded down to the height of the
latter system, the winds from the Pacific Ocean, when they are drawn
inland by the cyclonic storms of the Rocky Mountain plateau, or of
the Mississippi Valley, instead of depositing their moisture on the
west slopes of the first range of mountains, would carry the water
vapor of the Pacific clear to that place in the Mississippi Valley
where it would meet the moisture drawn by the same storms from the
Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. This will appear clear when
one understands that cyclonic storms, such as are continually passing
across our continent in periods of about three days each, may embrace
in their eddy-like circulating systems areas one to three thousand
miles in diameter, in which the winds from all directions spirally
flow towards the center of the cyclonic system and the system itself
is moving eastward.
The water vapor exists as a separate atmosphere from oxygen and
nitrogen. It is screened off from the interior of continents by
mountain ranges because it is condensed and precipitated as rain or
snow at only moderate elevations. The windward side of mountains may,
therefore, receive torrential rains while their leeward sides are
entirely without precipitation.
It follows that if the Rocky Mountains were lowered as described,
the entire United States would be green with rich vegetation and
there would be no deserts anywhere within its broad boundaries. Also,
if the Appalachian Range were as high as the Rocky Mountains—as it
may have been at one time—and if it extended around the Gulf of
Mexico as well as up through our Atlantic Coast States, the vaporous
atmosphere of the Atlantic Ocean and of the Gulf of Mexico would be
prevented from entering the interior of the continent, and the power
that to-day stands as the greatest bulwark of civilization would not
exist. There would be but a narrow fringe of vegetation upon its east
and its west coasts; the interior, with its vast cotton and cereal
plains, would be a barren waste.
But to revert for a moment to Jefferson. He took his thermometer to
Philadelphia when he proceeded there on a mission that would have
caused any less serene and courageous spirit to forget all the small
details of life. When the debates upon which hung the fate of a
nation and, in fact, the lives of those that participated, were in
progress, he coolly hung his thermometer on the wall and noted down
its readings. Those historians who have described the intense heat
in Independence Hall on the Fourth of July, 1776, were mistaken, as
will be shown by reference to his observations, the early and the
late ones of which doubtless were made at his lodgings. They are as
follows: 6 A.M., 68°; 9 A.M., 72¼°; 1 P.M., 76°; and 9 P.M., 73½°.
Jefferson had one of the only two barometers in this country at that
time. James Madison (the Bishop, not the President) had the other.
They took readings at the same hour of the day for a considerable
period of time, and Jefferson discovered that changes in the pressure
of the air always began on his instrument a few hours before they
did on his friend’s instrument a couple of hundred miles to the
east of him. He came near discovering the fact that no matter what
the direction of the wind, storms almost universally move from the
west toward the east. When the British captured Washington they also
raided Monticello, Jefferson’s home in Virginia, and they destroyed
his barometer. It has been said that he was as much distressed over
the loss of his special instrument of science as he was over the
burning of the National Capitol.
In “Descriptive Meteorology” (Appleton), the writer expressed doubt
that there had been important changes in climate within the period
of authentic history, but recent researches cause him to change his
opinion, for the evidence now seems almost conclusive that marked
changes have occurred. The powerful kingdoms of Sumeria, Babylonia,
Assyria, and Persia, each ruling many centuries and dominating all
or a large part of the vast region from the Persian Gulf to the
Caspian Sea and westward to the Mediterranean and Egypt, covering in
their various reigns some four thousand years before Christ, could
hardly have built their many great cities, supported their numerous
millions of population, and developed the trade and commerce that
was theirs with the climatic conditions as they exist to-day. As
late as the opening of the Christian Era, Palmyra, in Syria, had a
population of from one hundred and fifty thousand to two hundred
thousand people, was opulent and adorned with a comparatively high
civilization. To-day we see the wreckage of its vast aqueduct and
irrigating systems, which are unable to gather enough water to wet
their well-constructed walls, and a few hundred people eke out a
miserable existence where once was a metropolis teeming with life
under luxurious conditions. The same picture is shown in more or less
relief throughout the greater part of the region that once maintained
the greatest empires of antiquity. But we must not assume that such
dry and nearly barren conditions are to continue forever; rather are
we to imagine that within a cycle of a few thousand years this region
may have a rebirth of abundant vegetation and again throb with the
pulsations of abounding life.
The record inscribed by the waters on the abandoned and the
submerged shores of inland lakes and seas in the Rocky Mountains,
and on the shores of the Caspian Sea and other waters, is easy to
read. It shows several great oscillations of climate in the United
States and the most civilized portions of the world since the birth
of Christ. For some time before and for several centuries after the
beginning of our era there was a wet period. The Caspian Sea stood
some one hundred feet higher than now and an abandoned beach and a
clearly marked shore line show that Lake Owens, in California, on
the east side of the Sierras, existed at a level nearly two hundred
feet higher than now. There was an abundance of water to irrigate the
Holy Land, and although the center of dominating human power had long
since passed in succession Babylon, Assyria, Persia, Greece, Macedon,
and was working its way towards the Atlantic, the Mesopotamian Valley
was abundantly fruitful.
Then, for six or seven hundred years, with short-period variations
of from thirty to fifty years, the world inhabited by civilized man
and large areas in the temperate zone not yet civilized, grew drier.
The Caspian Sea fell to a lower level than it now maintains, for
the ends of great walls, constructed to keep out barbarians, and
other evidences of the handiwork of man, are now many feet below
the surface of the water. This is the driest time known to history.
Ellsworth Huntington of Yale, acting under the auspices of the
Carnegie Foundation at Washington, made an examination of many of the
stumps of the big trees of California, ranging in age from one to
four thousand years. The thickness of each ring of annual growth is a
legible record of the wetness or the dryness of the year. One would
hardly think of these towering giants of the floral kingdom as being
both thermometers and rain gauges, accurately measuring and recording
the dry-hot and the wet-cold periods for thousands of years, and now
at the end of their majestic careers revealing the hidden secrets
of past ages. Huntington and Cushing, in “Principles of Human
Geography”, say:
“The rings dating from the time of Christ are thick and indicate
that at that time, when Palmyra had an abundant supply of
water, when Owens Lake overflowed and there was high water in
the Caspian Sea, the big trees also had plenty of water and
grew rapidly. Six or seven hundred years later, when Palmyra
was abandoned and when the Caspian Sea stood fifteen or twenty
feet lower than at present, the trees formed only narrow rings,
because the climate was dry. The way in which the growth of
the trees has varied is shown in Figure 30. The high part of
the curve indicates abundant rainfall. The black shading at the
bottom indicates periods of comparative aridity.”
[Illustration: FIG. 30.—Changes in Climate in California during the
Christian Era. Black shading indicates Drought.]
Since the extensive system of observations by the Weather Bureau was
inaugurated, some fifty years ago, it has been revealed to us that
frequently the Ohio Valley would suffer a deficit in rainfall that
would persist for periods as great as five or six years, while New
England and the South Atlantic States, or other large areas of the
country, had an excess. This is an illustration that excesses in
one part of the country were balanced by shortages in other parts
that occurred at the same time. But the long-period oscillations in
climate that are measured in hundreds of years instead of tens—these
changes seemed to have occurred simultaneously in the middle
latitudes of Europe and America. These changes were simultaneous in
an east and west direction. Now we have evidence of such long-period
changes in a north and south direction which were simultaneous, but
of an _opposite character_, indicating that during the Christian Era
the eastward track of storms has oscillated northward and southward.
This would account for the occurrence of dry and of wet periods
simultaneously throughout the vast stretch of territory between
southern California and the Caspian Sea. In Guatemala, Yucatan, and
other Central American countries there are ruins of cities and the
evidence of an agriculture and a civilization that could not have
been established with the torrential rains and jungle growths that
now prevail in those regions. During the centuries when the big
trees of California were receiving a large rainfall and making a
thick annual growth, especially about the beginning of the Christian
Era, because of a northward shifting of the climatic zone, the
precipitation in Yucatan and Guatemala had so diminished as to leave
only the amount of rainfall that could be economically employed in
agriculture and in the rearing of great cities; and then, with a
southward migration of the rain belt, these cities were suffocated
with excessive precipitation, agriculture rendered impossible, and
their temples and palaces buried beneath the gloom of a tropical
growth.
If we are to reason from the records of the past it seems highly
probable that at least the middle latitudes of the Northern
Hemisphere are slowly passing out of a dry period that has prevailed
for the past two hundred years or more. For several hundred years
all the great glaciers have receded, but we should not expect such
recession to continue indefinitely. Geology furnishes abundant
evidence that great changes took place in the climate of the earth
during the prehistoric ages; that there were several glacial periods,
the last occurring during pleistocene times, somewhere between twenty
and fifty thousand years ago, and that there were intervals between
the culminations of the Ice Ages of probably fifty thousand to one
hundred thousand years. Between these long winters, that have meant
death and desolation to much of what are now the most civilized
portions of the earth, there have been warm periods of thousands of
years’ duration.
Fossil remains show that regions far north, now covered with
perpetual ice, once supported a luxuriant flora and fauna, and many
regions in the temperate and equatorial zones that are now deserts
were once overgrown with forests and teeming with animal life. The
fundamental thing of the cosmos is change—birth, growth, maturity;
then decline, senility, death, decay, disintegration; and always
a renaissance, or new birth. Energy and life seem to be eternal,
but ever undergoing change. The Great Ice Cap may again cover New
England, the region of the Great Lakes, and flow southward to the
Ohio River, but the change will be so gradual, if it does come, that
there will be no great cities to be ground beneath the feet of the
boreal monster; cold that will precede the ice cap will destroy them
and they will be buried beneath the dust of accumulating ages before
their icy tombstone is erected. Then the healthful and invigorating
climate of the north part of our country will be transferred to the
region of the Gulf of Mexico. Civilization will and must migrate with
the shifting of the climatic belts. Because these changes cannot
possibly concern us personally, we have almost neglected the study
of the great forces that silently yet most persistently are at work
altering the conditions under which future man must live and work out
the destiny of coming generations.
=Effects of Forests on Climate and Floods.= Next to the fallacious
belief in a change of climate during the life of an individual there
are few if any errors that have gained such wide acceptance as a
belief that the cutting away of the forests has caused a marked
change in climate and especially in the frequency and intensity of
floods and droughts. The writer shared in the mistake with regard to
the influence of the forests in restraining run-off and augmenting
floods, until compelled by an order of the Congress of the United
States to prepare a report on the floods of the nation that had
occurred during the time of the gradual reduction of the forest
areas. Dividing into two equal periods the forty years for which
the Weather Bureau has comprehensive records of the rainfall upon
the catchment basins of the Tennessee, the Cumberland, and the Ohio
rivers, and for which it has records of the height of the rivers,
contrary to his belief, he found that the high waters were no higher
with a given rainfall, the floods of no longer duration, nor the
low waters of summer lower, during the last half of the period than
during the first half.
It is now pretty generally conceded by hydraulic engineers that the
broken, permeable soil of the husbandman, frequently stirred by
cultivation a part of the year and filled with countless billions
of the tiny water-absorbing rootlets of the grasses and the cereal
crops during the remainder of the annual period, is equally as good
a conserver of the rainfall as the forests themselves, even if it is
not better.
Some years ago the writer was delivering a series of Chautauqua
lectures. He arrived at Devil’s Lake, North Dakota, and found that
the Chautauqua amphitheater was on the banks of Devil’s Lake, once
bordering the town, but now receded to a distance of five miles and
confined to a narrow valley. In driving from the city to the lecture
hall he remarked to his escort that they seemed to be traveling along
the bottom of an ancient lake. His companion said, “Yes, a lake, but
not an ancient one. Fifty years ago I used to dive off a springboard
right there in front of the railroad station.” In the course of his
lecture the writer referred to this incident and told them that,
contrary to their belief, their climate had not changed, that fifty
years ago they sold their old lake to some gentlemen in Chicago and
that they had been selling it over again every year since; that the
former compact surface of the virgin prairie resisted the penetration
of the rainfall, or at least only slowly absorbed it, and allowed it
to collect in the depression adjacent to the city; but now, in the
broken, permeable soil of the farmer it was taken up by millions of
tiny rootlets and the hand of the Great Alchemist had transformed
their lake into wheat, the sale of which was responsible for the
presence of the speaker on the platform of a largely-attended
Chautauqua. The lake had gone never to return unless the region were
again to become the haunt of the buffalo and the prairie dog instead
of civilized man. The rainfall was the same, but it was now being
utilized for the benefit of mankind.
In this problem of rainfall, floods, and the forests, most persons
assume that when the forest is cut the land is at once denuded of
vegetation. On the other hand a second growth will effectually shade
the soil within a few months or a few weeks after the large trees
are removed, and if the land is cleared and rendered fit for the
plow, growing crops take the place of the forest-covering the greater
portion of the time.
There is an abundance of reasons for the protection of our
diminishing forests and for the creation of new forest areas without
assigning to the forests functions that they do not exercise. The
covering of an area by a great city, a village, a forest, a barn, or
a tent modifies the climate of the particular area covered so long as
the covering remains, but there is no appreciable climatic effect a
few feet above the surface of the earth between a forest and a field
of grain. The climate of a region like the American continent is
controlled fundamentally by the great oceans that wash its shores,
by the trend of its mountain systems and their height, and by the
direction of its prevailing winds. The vast vaporous atmosphere
that flows inland from the Atlantic Ocean to the foothills of the
Rocky Mountains, deluging our cereal plains with its life-giving
precipitation will continue its pluvial generosity without any heed
whatever to the puny scratchings of man upon the surface of Mother
Earth. Nothing that man can do will intensify drought conditions
on this continent or augment the volume of floods. It is time that
we return to sanity in considering this matter instead of being
frightened by the dire forebodings of well-meaning but purely
visionary enthusiasts, no matter how noble their aspirations may be
or how self-sacrificingly they have consecrated themselves to the
redemption of humanity.
It is certain that forests restrict the flow of moderate falls of
rain, but they do not restrain the flow of flood waters, because,
surprising as it may seem to one who has not tested the matter,
floods do not occur until after all surfaces, open fields and forests
alike, have become saturated, and then the run-off of the two
surfaces is equal.
CHAPTER XIV
CLIMATES FOR HEALTH AND PLEASURE
ONE’S LIFE WOULD BE PROLONGED IF, LIKE THE BIRDS, ONE COULD
MIGRATE ANNUALLY WITH THE TEMPERATURE—CHRISTMAS IN MANY
CLIMES—THE HOTTEST AND COLDEST PLACES IN THE WORLD
From what has gone before it is apparent that the regions of the
earth where man is at his best estate, so far as climate can
determine his environment, may be broadly defined in this country
as southern New England, southern and central New York, the Middle
Atlantic States, the Ohio Valley, the southern Lake Region and
westward to the middle of Kansas and Nebraska; in Europe it includes
the British Isles, France, Switzerland, extreme northern Italy,
Austria, Germany, Belgium, Holland, and the extreme southern parts
of Norway and Sweden. But in none of these regions is the climate
equally good during all seasons. In fact there are two short seasons
in each year when it is debilitating.
The great majority of the people, like galley slaves chained to
their oars, must remain in the same place throughout the year, others
may have a vacation of several weeks, and still others are free to
change their location as often as fancy calls them. The latter might
well learn from the birds, and by migrating with the temperature,
going far north in summer and far south in winter, maintain
themselves throughout the entire year in the most perfect atmospheric
conditions for health, happiness, and long life. Many a man of fifty,
having accumulated enough to modestly supply his wants, could add ten
to thirty years to his life, or might even double the period of his
existence, by ceasing to strive after riches, and by giving himself
up to a healthful movement about this beautiful world. His principal
companions should be good books,—the study of which will enlarge his
mental horizon and increase his capacity to see, comprehend, and
enjoy, and fit him to speak, act, and think in ways that will inure
to the public good. If he has not had the benefits of a college
education, now is the golden opportunity to read, and have pleasure
in the reading, popular books on Geology, Botany, Biology, Astronomy,
and Physics, and to become familiar with the history of his own
country and of the world. It need not be a period of idleness but one
of beautiful growth and of appreciation of the wonders of creation.
And thus will his spirit be lifted up and fitted for a higher realm
of existence in the world to come.
To those who must remain at home during heat spells, the advice is
given to close not only the shutters but the windows on the east side
of the house during the forenoon and do the same on the west side in
the afternoon. The best night’s sleep will be gained in a room facing
north on any floor that is not next the roof; this room will be
cooler if it is protected by another room on its east and one on its
west side.
=Long Life in the Open Air and the Sunshine.= It is difficult to
decide which most conduces to health and longevity: cheerfulness
of mind and kindness of thought, or life in the open air and in
the blessed sunshine. If one can enjoy both of these beneficent
conditions they should live as long as they desire to remain on
earth. _Most people live as long as they deserve to live._ It has
facetiously been said that old age is a bad habit. The writer is
disposed to agree with the humorist. Certain it is that few persons
who believe in the limitation of life to three score and ten ever
live beyond that period, while one should be possessed of a sound
body and a superior mind at that age, with just anticipations of a
third of a century of usefulness and happiness yet to come. As a man
thinketh, so is he. We are just beginning to comprehend something
of the wonderful power with which the Creator has invested us in
the development and the care of our bodies. Anger, hatred, malice,
jealousy, selfishness, fear, and worry create poisons that _may_
bring on disease and death, but they _certainly_ create a morbidity
in the body that shortens life.
Sunshine destroys molds, bacteria, and other enemies of the human
race that lurk in the darkness. It strikes dead the tubercle
bacillus, which is such a scourge to mankind. Its remedial power
comes largely from invisible light—the ultra-violet and the supra-red
rays. You are blind to these rays but your skin and blood are not;
they need the sunshine to give them vitality—not quack medicines
or medical tonics for which, through the venal partnership of the
Press, millions of the afflicted are induced not only to part with
the money so much needed by their families and themselves, but
to aggravate their sufferings. The sunshine of a high region is
beneficial to those ill with coughs, colds, bronchitis, tuberculosis,
anæmia, or other wasting diseases, because the upper altitudes are
rich in many rays that are beneficial, some of which are absorbed
by the higher air and do not penetrate to the earth, or only reach
the earth in minute quantities. There on the mountain the sun’s rays
are unpolluted by the dust and the bacteria of lower levels and
the cities. But one does not need extreme altitudes. Two to three
thousand feet may be sufficient.
=Mountain and Sea Air and the Injury from Over-bathing.= The seashore
is properly a great national playground during the heat of summer.
Evaporated spray leaves a trace of salt in the air which, with the
salt of the ocean, seems to be beneficial to many. Likewise there is
no condition of life that is not benefited by the pure air of the
wooded mountains. Those of moderate vigor may build up and maintain
high vitality by continuous bathing in the cool, pure waters of
mountain lakes and streams, but to many daily swimming in either
fresh or salt water, except that it be for a mere dip and right out
again, that is so cold as to be painful to the delicate sensations
of the skin, is extremely debilitating to all bodily functions. Be
moderate.
=How to Find the Climate You Seek.= At sea level in the tropics heat
and moisture combine to produce great physical discomfort. But even
under the equator it is possible to escape the tropical heat of low
levels by ascending four to six thousand feet, as can be done in some
places in Porto Rico and Cuba. Most of the capitals of South American
countries are located at altitudes of five to ten thousand feet; and
Brazil is planning to abandon her capital at sea level and move the
administrative machinery of government from the splendid city of Rio
de Janeiro to a mountain location in the interior.
Any region of the Alleghany system of mountains above a thousand
feet elevation possesses climatic conditions of therapeutic value.
Illustration of this fact is seen in the success of the noted
sanitaria in the Adirondacks, and in the mountain regions of North
Carolina and Virginia, and in the northern part of New England.
These sections are especially frequented by persons suffering from
pulmonary diseases, or from nervous exhaustion, many of whom find not
only relief but cure. Cool and healthful conditions of temperature
may be found during the summer along the ridges and on the peaks of
the entire mountain system that extends from North Carolina northward
through Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, and New England. The
advice of one’s physician should be sought, if one is ailing, before
determining between the seashore and the mountains, but in general
those suffering from diseases of the respiratory organs are better
located in the high levels, remote from the humid air of the ocean.
In winter Bermuda, Florida, Porto Rico, Cuba, the southern part of
the Gulf States, much of Southern California, and Hawaii have balmy
climates that permit of outdoor life without temperatures too high to
be comfortable. Hawaii and Bermuda have mild climates not only during
winter but throughout the entire year. The Riviera on the Gulf of
Genoa and the beautiful Lake region of Italy enjoy the balmy air of
the Mediterranean and are protected from the cold winter winds by the
Alps.
From October to May that portion of the Rocky Mountain plateau that
includes Arizona, New Mexico, and the northern interior of Old Mexico
has one of the finest climates in the world for those afflicted with
pulmonary diseases, as the sunshine is abundant and the day and night
temperatures such as to permit an almost continuous out-of-doors
existence. But the heat and the extreme dryness of the air in June,
July, August, and the first half of September is irritating to the
nerves and debilitating in general. Fortunately, when the conditions
are not favorable in the extreme southwest part of the country, they
are at their best in the mountains of the Middle Atlantic States and
New England, which offer to the pleasure or the health seeker a cool,
pure air unsurpassed by any other region of the earth.
For an all-the-year climate for the health seeker, it only can
be said that the ideal conditions do not continue at any place
throughout the entire year. Possibly it is well that it is so, as a
change may be beneficial for no reason except that it is a change.
There is one great caution ever to be borne in mind, and that is that
the health seeker must not continue or repeat the same unhygienic
life in his new climate that brought on the disease in the old.
=Climate of Cuba.= The climate of one tropical country may differ
materially from that of another in the same latitude as a result
of difference in altitude, proximity to large bodies of water, and
position with respect to the prevailing winds. Cuba being in the
region of the northeast trade winds, more rain falls on the north
side of its mountains than on the south side. The temperature of the
southeast coast is higher than it is on the northern and western
coasts, and the range of temperature everywhere between night and day
is small, rarely ten degrees and usually much less. It therefore has
a warm, humid, and monotonous climate, except in the high levels of
its mountains. The winter tourist will find the conditions of the
greater part of the island somewhat similar to those in the region
of Miami, Florida, but warmer. Havana is not so hot as Santiago. The
highest temperature ever recorded at Havana is 101° and the lowest
50°. A fairly pleasant temperature always can be found within a short
ride to the mountains. As in most tropical countries, Cuba has a dry
and a wet season. The rainy season is May to October. In the early
part of September, 1900, over thirty-six inches of rain fell within
thirty-six hours at Santiago. As a rule the precipitation is in the
shape of heavy showers, the clouds clearing as soon as the rain
ceases; the showers usually occur in the afternoon. Cuba, in common
with all the islands of the West Indies, occasionally is visited
by destructive hurricanes; these storms mainly are confined to the
period August to October. Frequent terrific thunderstorms occur in
summer.
=Climate of Porto Rico.= Its mountainous character gives it a marked
diversity of climate, torrential rains falling on the windward side
of its mountains, while the leeward sides are comparatively dry. The
highest temperature in San Juan since 1876 is 101° and the lowest
57°. In this city a cool breeze, known as the “briza”, adds to the
comfort of the late afternoon and evening. The wet season begins
a month earlier than in Cuba and lasts a month longer. San Juan is
probably the most healthful city in the West Indies, but those reared
in northern climates invariably suffer from its enervating influence
after several years of continuous residence. Water is abundant, there
being some seventy rivers and over a thousand small streams. The
mountains are clothed in vegetation to their tops, and frost of a
killing nature is practically unknown in the island.
=Climate of the Hawaiian Islands.= Much has been written about the
charm of the Hawaiian Islands, their mountains, volcanoes, tropical
verdure, and delightful climate. It is indeed a garden spot, and
its soil and climate make it so. Nowhere in the islands does the
temperature reach 90° at any time of the year, while at Honolulu,
the largest city and the capital, a temperature lower than 60° is
rarely experienced. Of course, as one ascends the high mountains for
which the group is noted, much lower temperatures are encountered,
while snow is not infrequent near the tops. July and August are the
warmest months and January the coldest. The climate is soothing and
dreamy and doubtless would prolong the life of many who are aged
and slowly passing to their end, and that of others of low vitality
but no organic disease. Most of the rain falls November to May, but
some falls in every month of the year. At Honolulu the amount is
about that which falls in Wisconsin, but at a station in the Kohala
Mountains one hundred and fifty-four inches have been measured as the
rainfall for seven months, and forty-two inches for one month, the
latter being a larger amount than the annual rainfall for the State
of Iowa.
=Climate of the Philippines.= The highest temperature so far recorded
at Manila is 100° and the lowest 60°. It is therefore warmer than
either Havana or Porto Rico. The hottest months are April, May, and
June, but the cool months are but a trifle cooler than the warm
months, the annual range of temperature being but three degrees. The
humidity is high at all seasons, and therefore the heat is oppressive
and debilitating. The greater part of the rainfall of Manila is from
June to October. Some relief may be gained from the low-level heat
by retreat to the mountains of some of the islands. It will require
several generations before the white man can become acclimated to
this region. The islands lie between latitude 6° and 18° North. White
children born of American parents and raised there never will have
the energy or ambition of their progenitors. If it were not for the
invigorating air of the mountain resort at Baquio, many American
officials could not continue a residence in the Philippines.
=Climate of Bermuda in Comparison with the Popular Winter Resorts
of Florida and California.= It is a mistake to represent the
climate of Bermuda as one of balmy sunshine during winter months.
It has some glorious days, but a large proportion are cloudy,
rainy, cool, and windy, and too cold for comfortable or healthful
bathing from the middle of December to the first of May. And yet,
its climate is healthful as a whole for nine months of the year and
more stimulating than is that of Florida in winter. If one wishes
sunshine and sea bathing in midwinter, it is better to go to Palm
Beach, St. Petersburg, or Miami, Florida; but if one desires to
have a moderately cool climate with a temperature of but little
variation between midday and midnight, and occasionally a day with
sufficient warmth and sunshine to justify a dip in the ocean or in
the many land-locked bays with which the islands abound, one well
may come to Bermuda. Such winter clothing as one naturally would
wear in Philadelphia or Washington is what one will need in order
to be comfortable. Bermuda is no place for Palm Beach suits, outing
shirts, and Panama hats in winter. Many tourists are mislead by
the advertisements of steamship lines and bring clothing which is
suitable only for early fall and late spring.
From the first of November to the middle of May the author occupied
a room on the ground floor, facing the waters of Hamilton Harbor,
and only fifty feet from the shore line. Here the diurnal range
of temperature is much less than at Prospect Hill, where the
Government’s observations are made. From the middle of December to
the middle of March, a thermometer in this room sluggishly ranged
from 60° at night to 64° during the day, and days when the wind
was high and rain falling—as occurs about one third of the time in
winter—the thermometer would not vary a degree from 60° during the
entire twenty-four hours. During April the range each day was from
68° at night to 70° at midday, and during November and May from 70°
to 76°.
The selection of the best winter climate for health and for pleasure
is so important that comparative data are here given of the most
popular places that are easy of access to the people of the United
States.
Bermuda has a wind velocity much greater than that of any of the
resorts named in the tables, and its relative humidity is about that
of Florida.
The charm of Bermuda is that the flowers bloom, vegetables grow, and
the trees remain green the year round. Even though frequent short
showers may fall each twenty-four hours more than half of the days
during winter, the soil is so porous that there is little or no mud,
and life is largely one of the open air, with a winter temperature
that conduces to activity; in fact, the temperature is such that one
requires heavy clothing all the time if one is to sit inactive in the
open. There is neither frost, fog, nor malaria, nor snakes.
Bermuda lies 666 miles south of New York City and about 700 miles
due east from Charleston, S. C., and 293 miles from the southern
edge of the Gulf Stream, which, if the truth must be told, exercises
no such influence on the climate of Bermuda as highly colored
advertising circulars would have one believe. It is the great ocean,
upon whose surface the islands make the most infinitesimal dot, that
controls the climate of the Bermudas. The Gulf Stream, wonderful
phenomenon that it is, is a sort of bug-a-boo to some who never
have intelligently studied ocean meteorology. Travelers tell of the
superheated atmosphere they encountered on crossing the Stream, and
educators who should know better teach that the entire climate of
Europe is markedly influenced by it. The fact is that there is no
distortion whatever of the isothermal lines as they enter and leave
the Gulf stream in any region north of Bermuda. (See Chart 14.) The
climate of Bermuda and of Europe is controlled largely by the great
Atlantic Ocean, not by this small river of warm water, which broadens
out and loses its identity long before the coast of Europe is
reached, and whose influence is soon dissipated in the vast expanse
of ocean air. The ocean has a great circulating system, northward
on the western and southward on its eastern side. This circulation
pushes the isothermal lines northward on one side and southward on
the other.
The islands of Bermuda rise some 15,000 feet from the floor of the
ocean, and project above the water to heights varying from 50 to
260 feet above sea level. Like jewels nestling upon the bosom of a
sub-tropical ocean these islands, from one half to three miles wide,
are strung along so close that one almost can hop over from one to
the other. They lie in the form of a fish-hook; from the hole where
the line of the fisherman would be tied to the point of the hook is
about twenty-six miles. The topography is irregular and picturesque.
On land there are caves and grottoes and subterranean lakes. January
to May rose borders are abloom. In April the oleander is showing
pink and crimson along every roadside, and the hedges hold these
beautiful flowers for months; at Easter time lilies carpet the ground
and perfume the air. Here morning glories have many forms and colors,
which, with pendent bells, climb wide-spreading cedar trees, and wild
passion flowers cover rocky cliffs.
The sea is so transparent that many feet below the surface the
eye may follow the movements of marine life housed about by coral
formations of strange devices. The colors of the sea are as
changeable as the opal. Over shallow bottoms the colors are delicate
shades of light green, over the shoals brownish hues, and beyond the
dangerous reefs, which have sent many a sailor to his long home, and
behind which numerous pirates of old have taken refuge, the waters
vary from the light blue of the sapphire to deep green. The prismatic
colors are forever laughing and dancing to the eye of the beholder.
The shadow of a cloud, a ripple of the surface, a different angle
to the fall of sunshine as the day advances, deepen or brighten the
tints through a wide range of color.
Through the glass bottom of a boat one may look into the gardens.
Rising from the bottom and waving gracefully with the movements of
the waters, like tree ferns moved by gentle zephyrs, are purple sea
fans and tall black rods. Beautifully colored fishes dart about, or
lazily bask in the sun that illumines their coral grottoes; weeds of
many colors; green and scarlet sponges; vegetable growths delicate in
formation and brilliant anemones cling to ledges of rock that here
and there are tinted with pink.
Rival champions of the east and the west coasts of Florida may
fortify themselves by a study of the tables. It may be noted that
Miami and Tampa have the same midday temperature, but that Tampa
has a greater range, the night temperature on the average falling
five degrees lower than Miami; also that Tampa, which can be
taken as typical of St. Petersburg, has but twenty-one rainy days
on an average from December to March inclusive, while Miami has
thirty-four. Bermuda has sixty-five days with rain during the period,
with much wind. From these data one may select the climate that best
suits him and he may know that the data are accurate and put forth by
some one not interested in advancing the interest of one place over
another. No country in the world has more delightful and healthful
climates for winter and for summer than can be found in the wide
domain of the United States.
U. S. WEATHER BUREAU
AVERAGE TEMPERATURE, HUMIDITY, DAYS WITH RAIN, CLOUDINESS, AND WIND AT
_Los Angeles, California_
==========================+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+
DATA |JAN. |FEB. |MAR. |APR. |MAY |JUNE |
--------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
Maximum | 64 | 66 | 67 | 70 | 72 | 77 |
Highest maximum | 87 | 88 | 99 |100 |103 |105 |
Minimum | 44 | 45 | 47 | 49 | 52 | 56 |
Lowest minimum | 28 | 28 | 31 | 36 | 40 | 46 |
Daily range | 21 | 21 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 |
Relative humidity | 65 | 69 | 69 | 72 | 76 | 76 |
Days with .01 or more rain| 7 | 6 | 7 | 4 | 2 | 1 |
Percentage sunshine | 65 | 68 | 65 | 68 | 63 | 69 |
Hourly wind velocity | 5.1| 5.3| 5.3| 5.2| 5.2| 5.0|
--------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
==========================+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+======
DATA |JULY |AUG. |SEPT.|OCT. |NOV. |DEC. |ANNUAL
--------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+------
Maximum | 82 | 82 | 81 | 76 | 72 | 67 | 73
Highest maximum |109 |106 |108 |102 | 96 | 89 | 109
Minimum | 59 | 60 | 58 | 53 | 48 | 46 | 52
Lowest minimum | 49 | 49 | 44 | 40 | 34 | 30 | 28
Daily range | 25 | 24 | 25 | 24 | 24 | 20 | 22
Relative humidity | 75 | 74 | 73 | 69 | 62 | 58 | 70
Days with .01 or more rain| 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 6 | 40
Percentage sunshine | 76 | 79 | 77 | 76 | 77 | 74 | 71
Hourly wind velocity | 4.7| 4.6| 4.5| 4.5| 4.6| 5.0| 4.9
--------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+------
_Miami, Florida_
--------------------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+
DATA |JAN.|FEB.|MAR.|APR.|MAY |JUNE|
--------------------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+
Maximum | 69 | 70 | 76 | 80 | 86 | 89 |
Highest maximum | 85 | 88 | 92 | 93 | 94 | 94 |
Minimum | 58 | 59 | 64 | 66 | 70 | 73 |
Lowest minimum | 29 | 29 | 39 | 46 | 62 | 61 |
Daily range | 11 | 11 | 12 | 14 | 16 | 16 |
Relative humidity | 81 | 80 | 79 | 76 | 79 | 82 |
Days with .01 or more rain| 10 | 8 | 7 | 7 | 10 | 14 |
Percentage sunshine | 60 | 62 | 67 | 73 | 67 | 60 |
Hourly wind velocity | 11 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 10 | 9 |
--------------------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+
--------------------------+----+----+-----+----+----+----+-----+
DATA |JULY|AUG.|SEPT.|OCT.|NOV.|DEC.|ANNUAL
--------------------------+----+----+-----+----+----+----+------
Maximum | 89 | 89 | 88 | 82 | 76 | 70 | 80
Highest maximum | 96 | 96 | 94 | 93 | 88 | 91 | 96
Minimum | 75 | 75 | 74 | 71 | 67 | 61 | 68
Lowest minimum | 69 | 67 | 62 | 53 | 38 | 32 | 29
Daily range | 14 | 14 | 14 | 11 | 9 | 9 | 12
Relative humidity | 82 | 83 | 83 | 80 | 79 | 81 | 80
Days with .01 or more rain| 14 | 15 | 17 | 15 | 9 | 9 | 135
Percentage sunshine | 64 | 64 | 62 | 53 | 61 | 57 | 62
Hourly wind velocity | 8 | 8 | 9 | 12 | 11 | 10 | 10
--------------------------+----+----+-----+----+----+----+------
U. S. WEATHER BUREAU (Continued)
AVERAGE TEMPERATURE, HUMIDITY, DAYS WITH RAIN, CLOUDINESS, AND WIND AT
_Jacksonville, Florida_
==========================+====+====+====+====+====+====+
DATA |JAN.|FEB.|MAR.|APR.|MAY |JUNE|
--------------------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+
Maximum | 56 | 57 | 63 | 67 | 75 | 80 |
Highest maximum | 81 | 86 | 91 | 92 |108 |101 |
Minimum | 47 | 49 | 54 | 59 | 63 | 72 |
Lowest minimum | 15 | 10 | 26 | 34 | 46 | 54 |
Daily range | 9 | 8 | 9 | 8 | 12 | 8 |
Relative humidity | 81 | 79 | 77 | 74 | 75 | 79 |
Days with .01 or more rain| 9 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 9 | 13 |
Percentage sunshine | 55 | 57 | 68 | 73 | 71 | 65 |
Hourly wind velocity | 8 | 8 | 9 | 9 | 8 | 8 |
--------------------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+
==========================+====+====+=====+====+====+====+======
DATA |JULY|AUG.|SEPT.|OCT.|NOV.|DEC.|ANNUAL
--------------------------+----+----+-----+----+----+----+------
Maximum | 82 | 82 | 78 | 70 | 62 | 56 | 69
Highest maximum |104 |101 | 99 | 95 | 86 | 82 | 104
Minimum | 74 | 74 | 71 | 63 | 54 | 47 | 61
Lowest minimum | 66 | 64 | 49 | 37 | 26 | 14 | 10
Daily range | 8 | 8 | 7 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 8
Relative humidity | 80 | 83 | 84 | 82 | 81 | 81 | 80
Days with .01 or more rain| 15 | 15 | 13 | 10 | 8 | 8 | 124
Percentage sunshine | 63 | 63 | 59 | 56 | 63 | 53 | 62
Hourly wind velocity | 7 | 7 | 7 | 8 | 7 | 7 | 8
--------------------------+----+----+-----+----+----+----+------
_San Diego, California_
--------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
DATA |JAN. |FEB. |MAR. |APR. |MAY |JUNE |
--------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
Maximum | 62.2| 62.6| 63.6| 65.2| 66.0| 69.2|
Highest maximum | 83 | 89 | 99 | 96 | 98 | 94 |
Minimum | 46.4| 47.6| 49.6| 52.4| 55.5| 58.7|
Lowest minimum | 25 | 34 | 36 | 39 | 45 | 50 |
Daily range | 15.8| 15.0| 13.9| 13.2| 10.5| 10.5|
Relative humidity | 71 | 74 | 74 | 75 | 77 | 80 |
Days with .01 or more rain| 7 | 7 | 7 | 4 | 3 | 1 |
Percentage sunshine | 67 | 67 | 66 | 69 | 58 | 62 |
Wind velocity | 5.1| 5.8| 6.2| 6.4| 6.4| 6.1|
--------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
--------------------------+-----+-----+------+-----+-----+-----+------
DATA |JULY |AUG. |SEPT. |OCT. |NOV. |DEC. |ANNUAL
--------------------------+-----+-----+------+-----+-----+-----+------
Maximum | 72.3| 73.6| 73.1| 70.4| 67.7| 64.3| 67.5
Highest maximum | 93 | 93 | 110 | 96 | 93 | 84 | 110
Minimum | 62.2| 63.6| 61.3| 56.6| 51.4| 47.9| 54.5
Lowest minimum | 54 | 54 | 50 | 44 | 36 | 32 | 25
Daily range | 10.1| 10.2| 11.9| 13.6| 16.4| 16.3| 13.1
Relative humidity | 81 | 80 | 79 | 76 | 70 | 68 | 75
Days with .01 or more rain| 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 6 | 44
Percentage sunshine | 67 | 72 | 72 | 73 | 76 | 74 | 68
Wind velocity | 5.9| 5.7| 5.7| 5.3| 5.0| 5.0| 5.7
--------------------------+-----+-----+------+-----+-----+-----+------
U. S. WEATHER BUREAU (Continued)
AVERAGE TEMPERATURE, HUMIDITY, DAYS WITH RAIN, CLOUDINESS, AND WIND AT
_Tampa, Florida_
==========================+====+====+====+====+====+====+
DATA |JAN.|FEB.|MAR.|APR.| MAY|JUNE|
--------------------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+
Maximum | 69 | 70 | 77 | 80 | 86 | 89 |
Highest maximum | 82 | 86 | 92 | 90 | 94 | 95 |
Minimum | 51 | 52 | 58 | 61 | 67 | 71 |
Lowest minimum | 23 | 22 | 32 | 38 | 53 | 64 |
Daily range | 18 | 18 | 19 | 19 | 19 | 18 |
Relative humidity | 82 | 80 | 80 | 75 | 75 | 80 |
Days with .01 or more rain| 4 | 6 | 6 | 3 | 4 | 9 |
--------------------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+
==========================+====+====+=====+=====+=====+=====+====
DATA |JULY|AUG.|SEPT.|OCT. |NOV. |DEC. |YEAR
--------------------------+----+----+-----+-----+-----+-----+----
Maximum | 89 | 89 | 88 | 82 | 76 | 70 | 80
Highest maximum | 96 | 96 | 96 | 93 | 87 | 83 | 96
Minimum | 73 | 73 | 72 | 65 | 58 | 52 | 63
Lowest minimum | 65 | 66 | 54 | 43 | 32 | 19 | 19
Daily range | 16 | 16 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 18 | 17
Relative humidity | 82 | 83 | 84 | 80 | 81 | 82 | 80
Days with .01 or more rain| 11 | 12 | 7 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 75
--------------------------+----+----+-----+-----+-----+-----+----
_Bermuda_
Observations taken on the hill at Prospect, 250 feet elevation, and
furnished through the courtesy of Sir Frederick Stupart, Director of
Canadian weather service
--------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
DATA |JAN. |FEB. |MAR. |APR. |MAY |JUNE |
--------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
Maximum |67 |67 |68 |70 |74 |78 |
Highest maximum |79 |75 |78 |80 |83 |88 |
Minimum |58 |57 |57 |58 |63 |68 |
Lowest minimum |39 |45 |44 |40 |49 |54 |
Daily range of temperature|10 |10 |11 |11 |11 |11 |
Relative humidity |82 |81 |81 |81 |84 |85 |
Days with .01 rain or more|17 |16 |15 |12 |11 |11 |
Hourly wind velocity |15 |16 |15 |14 |12 |11 |
Greatest monthly rainfall | 9.71|10.40|10.05|13.31| 9.09|10.98|
Average rainfall | 4.90| 4.79| 5.05| 4.90| 4.39| 5.18|
--------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
--------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+------
DATA |JULY |AUG. |SEPT.|OCT. |NOV. |DEC. |ANNUAL
--------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+------
Maximum |84 |85 |83 |78 |73 |69 | 75
Highest maximum |92 |94 |91 |88 |82 |79 | 94
Minimum |73 |74 |72 |69 |63 |60 | 64
Lowest minimum |65 |64 |59 |60 |49 |46 | 39
Daily range of temperature|11 |11 |11 |11 |10 |10 | 11
Relative humidity |84 |83 |83 |82 |81 |81 | 82
Days with .01 rain or more|12 |15 |14 |15 |16 |17 |171
Hourly wind velocity |11 |10 |11 |12 |13 |14 | 13
Greatest monthly rainfall |11.24|21.33|16.30|17.73|11.36|10.58|
Average rainfall | 3.76| 5.98| 5.24| 7.91| 4.32| 4.98| 61.40
--------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+------
The Scientific American thus speaks of the uses of climatic data:
“What are climatic statistics good for? To this query one is
tempted to retort: What are they _not_ good for? Let us set down
a few typical cases in which such data are desired.
“A merchant plans to undertake the sale of rubber coats
in foreign markets. Hence he wishes to know all about the
distribution of rainfall, both geographically and as to season.
Which are the rainy regions of the globe? When do the heaviest
occur in each of these regions? Where do the prevailing
temperatures indicate the need of heavy coats, and where light?
“An invalid contemplates visiting a certain health resort. What
mean temperatures occur there at the season of the proposed
visit? What ranges of temperature between day and night? How much
does the temperature vary from day to day? How much sunshine may
be expected? Is the atmosphere moist or dry? What of the winds?
Such are some of the questions he is likely to ask.
“A horticulturist proposes to introduce a foreign plant in this
country. Where will he find the most favorable climate for it? In
order to settle this question he first tries to secure certain
information about the climate of the plant’s original habitat—the
march of temperature through the season of growth, average
dates of first and last frost, normal fluctuations of rainfall,
humidity, sunshine, etc. If the desired information is obtained,
the next step is to ascertain where (if anywhere) similar
climatic conditions prevail in the United States, and this is
generally an easy task.
“An engineer is planning a sewer system. He needs data of
excessive rainfall for the locality under consideration, so that
he may estimate the maximum amount of storm-water the sewers will
ever need to dispose of in a given time. Their capacity should
not exceed this amount beyond a reasonable margin of safety:
otherwise cost of construction would be unnecessarily great.
“This list of examples might be extended almost indefinitely.
It will suffice, however, to show how wide a range of climatic
information is required to meet all possible demands. The
different branches of industry are concerned with different sets
of climatic data. One set helps determine the best location
for a railroad: another the kind of goods that will be shipped
over it and the way in which they will need to be packed and
cared for during shipment. The climatic conditions that must be
considered in planning a military campaign are quite unlike those
that engage the attention of a hydrological engineer in laying
out a system of irrigation. Climatic statistics of interest to
aviators are not identical with those that bear upon the problems
of ecology or forestry or sanitation. In short, climate means
different things to different people.”
=Christmas in Many Climes.= A general idea of the diversification of
climate may be gathered from a description of the weather of some
particular day of the year as it exists in many different parts of
the world. One is too prone to assume that the weather one has on a
given day prevails everywhere. For the moment one does not consider
the effect of distance from the equator, proximity to large bodies
of water, and elevation above sea level and above the surrounding
region. When a holiday or any day of special interest occurs,
while the weather cannot make the occasion a success, it can quite
effectively destroy all pleasure in the event. When we approach the
day of all days in the year when two fifths of the people of the
world celebrate the natal day of Christ, interest in the weather
increases. The little ones of our clime pray that a mantle of snow
may cover the ground, so that dear old Santa Claus may come with his
reindeer and sleigh. The boys and girls long for the snow-covered
hillsides and the glassy ponds; and even our good old grandmother
smiles in anticipation of such a Christmas Day as gladdened her heart
when she was a wee tot.
It may be interesting to know under what kind of skies the people of
other lands celebrate this international holiday. In the Northern
Hemisphere places near the same latitude may have weather conditions
greatly at variance the one from the other, because of conditions
previously explained. It is our winter now; not because the sun is
farthest from us, for in five days the earth will reach the time
of perihelion in its course around the sun, and be nearer to the
central luminary than at any other time of the year, but because the
inclination of the earth’s axis causes us to receive the rays of the
sun at a lower angle than during any other season and its intensity
is reduced. The conditions are reversed to the people of the Southern
Hemisphere; they now receive the most direct rays of the sun and have
their summer, which is intensified by the nearness of the earth to
the sun.
The event that gave origin to our Christmas holiday occurred nearly
two thousand years ago in Bethlehem of Judea; and it may be a new
idea to us to try to think of the weather that prevailed at that
time and the character of the Christmas Day that land may have this
year. We know that it was not cold and cloudy on that eventful night
so long ago, for the shepherds were feeding their flocks upon the
hillsides and the Wise Men of the East beheld a star and followed
it. The star shone brightly from the time they left Herod until they
reached the place where the Infant lay. We may therefore judge that
this part of their journey was made under a clear sky and that the
same conditions prevailed at Bethlehem. Weather observations made
at Jerusalem, a few miles from Bethlehem, during modern times, show
that during December there are less than fourteen cloudy days on the
average. The prevailing winds are from the Mediterranean Sea, only
thirty miles to the west of Bethlehem, and therefore rarely does the
temperature exceed 65° during the day or fall to freezing at night.
While there is evidence that the climate is drier now throughout all
of the Holy Land than at the birth of Christ, it is highly probable
that when He was born the stars were shining brightly and the hills
were green and beautiful and the weather smiling its benediction upon
the Son of God.
We now will glance at the weather that experience teaches us will
probably prevail in some of the principal cities of the world on
Christmas Day, and thus have impressed upon us the fact that on
any day of the year humanity lives under widely differing weather
conditions throughout the world.
In our own country we know that Maine is the home of ice, snow, and
chilling blasts, while in California and Florida orange blossoms
perfume the temperate air.
In London Christmas is not always bright and comfortable, for on the
average twenty-one days in December are cloudy and the temperature
ranges from a few degrees below freezing at night to about 50° during
the day.
In Paris the weather is about the same as in London. It has the same
percentage of cloudiness, and its daily range of temperature is
from 32° to 45°, slightly colder than London. The influence of wind
direction and the relation of water and land areas to the location
of a city are well exemplified in the fact that Paris, farther south
than London, has a lower winter temperature. In the United States
the coldest winter winds are from the northwest and they also would
be so in Western Europe were it not for the fact that they draw from
the ocean, whose waters are much warmer in winter than the interior
of the continent of Europe. The northeast winds are therefore the
coldest that come to Paris and London. In the first case they draw
from the cold interior, and in the second case the air in passing
to London from the northeast must pass over the North Sea and the
extreme temperature of the cold land is somewhat modified by even
this comparatively small body of water with the result that the
average daily maximum temperature of London for December is five
degrees warmer than its neighbor some two hundred miles farther
south.
Berlin and Vienna have the same degree of cloudiness, but there the
similarity ceases. Berlin, only about one hundred miles from the
Baltic Sea on the northeast and about double this distance from the
North Sea on the northwest has an average range of but eight degrees
between day and night temperatures, while Vienna, deep-set in the
interior of a great continent, has a daily range of thirty-seven
degrees, the average temperature swinging from 13° to 50° each day
during December.
Constantinople was named after the Roman Emperor who made it
his capital and who first protected the early Christians from
persecution, then became converted and, in the manner of his time,
forced others to accept the doctrine at the point of the sword. Here
Christianity was first recognized and adopted as a State religion,
but since the middle of the fifteenth century Constantinople has
been the home of the Sultan of Turkey and the principal city of
those who worship Muhammid as the prophet of God instead of Christ.
This ancient city, so interwoven in the history of Christianity,
has a delightful climate at Christmas time, the daily range being
from between a little above freezing and 65° or 70°, with clouds
obscuring the sky about one half the time.
Historical Rome has about as many clear days as cloudy ones and the
days are pleasant and the nights simply cool.
At Cairo, in the land where Joseph was sold into bondage and where
Pharaoh raised him to the highest position in the land next to his
own, no more delightful place can the traveler find at Christmas
time. Only one day in three is cloudy and the gentle winds are warm
and balmy, with a daily range in temperature of 12°.
In Calcutta there is a great amount of sunshine, only one day in five
being cloudy, with an average daily minimum temperature of 58° and a
maximum of 80°.
Bombay is also sunshiny at this time of the year and excessively
hot, with a range each day from 66° to 88°. Here, as at Calcutta,
Brahmanism and Buddhism rule instead of Christianity.
China, that enormous empire that believes in the ethical philosophy
of Confucius, whose inhabitants have lived for four thousand years
with less strife and bloodshed than any other nation, has as great
a variety of climate during December in the widely separated parts
of its broad domain as has the United States. On any day of the
Christmas month some parts of this country are bound in icy chains,
while other parts are sweltering in a torrid temperature.
That wonderful Island—Japan—whose people have made such amazing
strides in catching up with the most advanced civilization of the
Occident, and who never have accepted Christianity, has a most
delightful climate during winter, with a large amount of sunshine and
moderate temperatures.
The vast Christian nation so long ruled by the Tzar, and now in
such deplorable chaos, has a varied climate during December. From
temperate conditions in the southern portion of its European
possessions it gradually grows colder as one goes northward until a
region of great severity is reached. At Petrograd the average night
temperature is 6° below zero. At Moscow it is colder, the average of
its minimum temperature being 11° below. Two thirds of the time it is
cloudy at these two cities.
Verkhoyansk, in the central portion of Siberia, is nearly the coldest
place in the world where observations are regularly taken. There
Christmas Day may be ushered in with a temperature as low as 75°
below zero. For days at a time this extreme cold remains, the warmest
part of the day varying but little from the coldest.
In many of the cities of the Southern Hemisphere Christmas Day is
likely to be such as will cause the sojourner to long for some cooler
region. There it is midsummer, the grass is green and the fruit is on
the tree. We of the North could hardly realize that it is December.
In the pampas of the Argentine Republic everything is parched. The
white stucco walls and the red tile roofs in the cities reflect the
intense rays of the sun into the shimmering air. In Rio de Janeiro
the days are almost unbearable, the daily temperature rising to 100°
and over at midday and seldom falling to 60° at night. Bear in mind
that the greater part of the area of South America lies between the
equator and 30° south latitude. But wherever in these South American
cities one can escape to an elevation of several thousand feet a
pleasant temperature may be found.
At Santiago, Chili, it is more comfortable than in Brazil, for the
nights are cool, even though the day temperatures rival those of
the Argentine Republic. But here the cool mountain tops are almost
hanging over the coast cities.
At Cape Town, in the extreme south part of Africa, two days out of
three are clear and the daily range of temperature is from 48° to
83°, making fairly pleasant conditions during the Christmas holidays.
At Melbourne, Australia, one half of the days are cloudy, and the
temperature is moderate, having a range from 54° to 75°.
Thus we see that the climatological features of the world, not only
on Christmas but on any other day of the year, are as varied as
the hopes and wishes of man, and whatever his desires or physical
necessities may be, a climate may be found under the influence of
which he may find pleasure and gain health.
=The Hottest and the Coldest Places in the World.= It is an innate
characteristic of the human race to be interested in the abnormal,
whether it be in the achievements of men or in the extremes of
natural phenomena. This is especially true with regard to the
weather. During periods of extremes of heat or cold the natural
inquiry is as to whether there ever has been a period of equal or
greater severity. Although suffering intensely there always is a
desire to “beat the record.” It therefore may be of interest briefly
to refer to the hottest and the coldest places in the world.
=North America.= One of the most torrid places in the United States
is in that remarkable region known as Death Valley. It is located
in Southern California. Its name is supposed to be derived from a
melancholy tragedy that occurred in 1850, in which every member
of a party of emigrants perished in Death Valley from thirst and
exhaustion, leaving the bones of themselves and their animals to
whiten in the sun. The valley is the bed of an ancient salt sea
which existed when the climate was much wetter than now; its soil
is largely composed of sand, salt, and borax. The borax deposits
are large; at places they form crusts that support the weight of
travelers. The length of the valley is seventy-five miles, but it
is narrow at the bottom, in places being no more than six miles.
One of its remarkable features is that its bottom, in many places,
is three hundred feet below the level of the sea, one hundred miles
to the west. It is fed by several small streams and innumerable
warm springs, the water from which is entirely absorbed by the
porous soil, although water may be found by digging down a few
feet. The water is unfit for use. It is a desolate and forbidden
region, inhabited by gnats, toads, lizards, and snakes. However, the
employees of a company engaged in the business of marketing borax
spend a portion of each year there.
In 1891 an observer of the U. S. Weather Bureau remained in Death
Valley from May to September, during which time he made daily
observations of the weather. His experience was a most trying one,
drawing heavily upon his physical and mental stamina to complete the
period of time that had been set for him. For the entire time of
one hundred and fifty-four days less than one half an inch of rain
fell. There occurred several days in succession with a temperature of
122°. However, this is not the highest temperature ever recorded in
the United States. In July, 1887, at Mammoth Tank, in the Colorado
Desert, the temperature reached 128° in the shade, and again, in
1884, 124° was reached at the same place. On July 18, 1891, in Death
Valley, the maximum was 120° and the minimum 99°, making an average
for all hours of 108.6°. The extremely high temperatures reached in
the Colorado Desert, which embraces a portion of Southern California
and Arizona, do not vary greatly from those of Death Valley; they are
not exceeded anywhere in Central or North America. Such degrees of
heat, if experienced for two or three weeks in the more humid regions
of the eastern half of the United States, would nearly depopulate the
region by the havoc of death.
The lowest temperatures in the United States occur in extreme
northern portions of Minnesota, North Dakota, and Montana, where
temperatures from 50° to 55° below zero have been recorded. It is
interesting to note that in this same region the summer temperatures
have risen to readings of from 105° to 108°. Of course this heat is
quite different in its effects upon life from the heat of the Gulf
or Atlantic coasts. One feels a marked difference between the sun
and the shade temperatures in these semi-arid regions. Sunstroke is
infrequent and death seldom results from exposure, as it does in the
East.
The region of severest cold in North America is found about the Great
Bear Lake in the British Northwest Territory, where temperatures of
58° below zero have been recorded.
=South America.= The hottest portion of South America is in the
interior, with extensive systems of mountain ranges along the coast
preventing the inward flow of the moist rain-bearing winds from the
ocean. In a stretch of country extending from Uruguay northward into
the interior of Brazil, the average of the highest temperature of
each year for a period of several years is 104°, with individual
readings much higher. Except on the top of the mountains, or well up
their sides, no severely cold weather occurs in South America, seven
eighths of its territory lying between the equator and latitude 30°
south.
=Africa.= In Africa is to be found the hottest region of the world,
the great Desert of Sahara, upon whose sands beats down the fierce
tropical sun with merciless intensity. Here shade temperatures of
130° are frequently experienced. Only those bred to extreme tropical
desert heat can long live under such conditions. In a portion of
the desert lying between Egypt and the Red Sea the temperature has
been known not to fall below 113° for a period of ten days, while
on several nights the lowest temperature reached was 118°, with a
practically calm air. Africa lies with about one half of its immense
area on each side of the equator, and the greater part of its
territory inside the Tropical Zone. Except in a few isolated cases on
high mountains, temperatures as low as zero never are experienced.
=Europe.= The warmest portion of Europe is in the region round
and about the Mediterranean Sea. The coldest places in all Europe
are in the western part of Russia and in the northern part of the
Scandinavian Peninsula. Here the average of the coldest days of
winter is 50° below zero.
=Asia.= It is difficult to determine in what part of Asia the highest
temperature occurs, as data from many parts are meager. It is known
however that extremely hot weather prevails in India and Arabia.
Siberia, however, experiences the coldest weather to be found
anywhere in the world. At Werchojansk, in that country, a temperature
of 90.4° below zero was observed in January, 1884, while the average
temperature for the whole month was 69.4° below zero.
The coldest weather of the world is not found at the North or the
South Pole, as many suppose, but rather at the center of vast
continents, far from the modifying influence of oceans.
=Australia.= In extreme heat the interior of Australia is fairly
comparable with northern Africa, Persia, Afghanistan, and northern
India, where every year maximum temperatures of 115° occur, and
where, at times, an extreme heat of 120° or 125° is experienced in
the shade.
We now know that the forceful, dominating peoples come out of the
regions where the heat is not so great as to debilitate, nor the cold
so fierce as to deaden the mental and the physical faculties; but
rather from the region of the thoroughfare of the great circum-polar
storm tracks, where there are frequent changes of weather from
sunshine to clouds, and where there is a fairly wide difference in
temperature between night and day and between winter and summer. For
the best coördination of the mental and the physical faculties, so
as to produce the most efficient composite of man, the temperature
should range between 45° and 50° at night and between 65° and 70°
during the day, with about sixty-five to seventy per cent. of
relative humidity. Some day we will artificially create the exact
conditions of temperature and moisture needed for patients in
hospitals and sanitaria. Science is persistently seeking means to
increase comfort and prolong life.
CHAPTER XV
CONDENSATION
HOW HAZE, RAIN, SNOW, HAIL, FROST, CLOUD, AND FOG ARE FORMED
=Haze= is what might be called diluted cloud or fog; it differs from
them only in the degree of its density. One may see several miles
through a haze, because the minute particles of spheres of water or
ice are far apart in comparison to what they are in fog or cloud.
=Raindrops= vary in size from O.03 to O.20 of an inch in diameter.
Each drop is composed of literally millions of minute specks of water
that have condensed each about a minute mote of dust. These motes
are a million of times below anything that may be seen with the most
powerful microscope. Recall what is said in Chapter IV about the size
of the molecules in water: if a raindrop were enlarged to the size of
the earth, the molecules of which it is composed would be no larger
than a baseball, and the smallest of them no larger than tiny green
peas. Without free surfaces upon which condensation may begin there
can be no rainfall. Dust motes furnish these surfaces; without them
air may be supersaturated without condensation occurring except where
it comes in contact with solid matter. The little spherical masses
of water join together so as to form raindrops in some manner not
well understood. When enough of them coalesce so that the weight of
the drop is too heavy to be supported by the motions of the air it
falls to the ground, or is evaporated by the warmer and drier lower
air. Raindrops form mainly in the stratum between one and three miles
above the earth. It is seldom that the stratum of air next the earth
is saturated, even during rainfall. One might evaporate millions
of gallons of water and find no dust as a residue, or at least
nothing visible to the human eye, so infinitesimal are the motes of
condensation. As high as thirty millions have been shown to exist in
a single cubic centimeter of air (Chapter IV), and a million times
that number could occupy such space without being visible, and the
dust mote is composed of molecules, and the molecules of atoms. It
is impossible for the human mind to grasp the idea of the degree of
smallness to which the atom attains, and when one tries to conceive
of the electrons from which the atom is built up, he must try to
think of them not as objects but as the place or condition where
matter slowly fades away into nothing; as the place possibly where
matter is transmuted into electrical energy and ceases to exist.
The raindrop cannot be formed at great altitudes because the vaporous
atmosphere is confined to low levels by temperature. At 100°, which
often exists at the bottom of the atmosphere, air at saturation
contains 19.77 grains the cubic foot; at 80°, 10.93; at zero, .04;
and at -40°, which always may be found at about four and one half
miles high, air cannot contain in excess of .01 of a grain. Raindrops
are mainly caused by the cooling of air down to its dew point.
=Rain Water Is Not Pure.= Hailstones often incase foreign matter that
has been carried upward by violent winds. Rain water is pure when
it is condensed, but it gathers other matter as it falls, such as
the pollen of plants, and the broken siliceous shells of microscopic
life carried by winds of the tropics; it also washes ammonia from the
air in small quantities,—about thirty pounds per acre in the eastern
half of the United States each year. A raindrop increases in velocity
as it falls until the resistance of the air becomes just equal to
the weight of the drop; after that it falls at a uniform rate. It
will surprise many to learn that if it were not for the retardation
effected by the resistance of the air, a raindrop falling from only
half a mile would be as dangerous to life as a rifle bullet, for
the speed with which a projectile travels can be made sufficient to
compensate for its softness or yielding qualities.
=How Much Water Is It Possible to Precipitate from the Earth’s
Atmosphere?= If the entire amount of water vapor present in the
atmosphere were precipitated instantly it would furnish a rainfall
of only two inches for the whole surface of the earth. A steady
downpour for twenty-four hours usually amounts to some two or three
inches. Over small areas and in exceptional cases as many feet have
been known to fall in that time, as fresh, vapor-bearing winds
steadily blew into a storm center, rose, discharged their burdens as
they cooled with ascent, and then flowed away, again to be charged
with moisture when they came into contact with wet surfaces. It is
impossible to drown the entire earth with rainfall, no matter how
long continued.
[Illustration: FIG. 31.—SNOW CRYSTALS.]
=Snow.= Snow is water vapor condensed in the congealed form, without
passing through the liquid state. When the minute pieces of ice of
which the flake is composed are magnified several hundred times they
are found to be composed of the most wonderfully beautiful figures.
Thousands have been photographed, but the versatility of nature is
so great that no two ever have been found that were exactly alike.
Figure 31 gives some idea of their infinite variety and perfect
symmetry. They are always governed by the number six. The most
common form at the beginning of winter is a six-rayed star, each ray
branching. As the winter advances and the cold becomes more severe,
the flakes take a simpler form, finally becoming slender six-sided
prisms with sharp ends, under the influence of severe cold waves.
Great pain is inflicted on the exposed parts of the body when these
prisms are encountered in a high wind.
When condensation takes place in a warm stratum it will be in the
form of minute massive spherical particles or spherules. If these
spherules are then whirled aloft by ascending currents it is possible
for them to be cooled to far below the freezing point without turning
to ice; they will, however, congeal instantly when they touch one
another or are jostled by touching any solid or liquid surface. They
may give a coating of ice to the limbs of trees and the coating may
increase until the limbs break, and the surface of the earth thus
may be covered with thin ice called _sleet_.
=Hail.= There is a difference of opinion among meteorologists as
whether the thunderstorm whirls about a vertical axis, like the
tornado and the hurricane, or whether it rotates about a horizontal
axis. One may well account for the formation of the hailstone by
assuming that its alternating layers of snow and ice are caused by
the horizontal roll of a thunderstorm, the under part of which has
a temperature at or above freezing and the upper half much below
freezing. A raindrop is formed in the lower part, frozen in its
course through the upper part, receives a fresh coating of water
or snow with each revolution and a freezing before its circuit is
completed. It thus gains in size until it becomes too heavy to be
sustained by the whirling storm-cloud, when it falls to earth. Hail
usually has the size of small peas, but occasionally it falls in
chunks sufficiently large to kill cattle in the fields. On August 15,
1883, a hailstone weighing eighty pounds is said to have fallen in
Kansas.
=Frost.= Frost is composed of beautiful crystallizations, similar to
snow. Chapter VII describes the process of formation in detail.
=Cloud.= Cloud is formed by the cooling by expansion as currents of
air are carried aloft. Clouds are composed of minute watery droplets
or of ice spiculæ, depending on their temperature, and the latter
largely is determined by elevation. A cloud differs from mist or
rain in the size and number of its particles, and from fog in its
position and the method of its formation. There are three fundamental
formations, the cirrus, cumulus, and stratus. The others are
combinations of these. The cirrus are thin, high, veil-like clouds,
always composed of ice spiculæ; the cumulus look like great banks
of snow with bulging, oval tops in which thunder heads may form;
the stratus spread out like a great blanket. The cirrus usually fly
at the top of the storm stratum, some five to seven miles high; the
other clouds at some lower level. When rain is falling from a cloud,
it is called nimbus.
=Fog Is Cloud at a Low Level.= It is formed by warm water vapor
rising from lakes or rivers into the cool night air at the bottom of
valleys, or by the cold waters of oceans being forced up over a bar,
where the coldness that they impart to the adjacent air condenses
some of its vapor.
=Artificial Rain Making.= Many swindlers have preyed upon the
credulity of the public by claiming to have a process for the making
of rain, and in some cases large sums of money have been paid by
commercial or other associations to these charlatans. In 1892 the
United States Congress appropriated $20,000 for the testing of
the theory that rain could be created by the setting off of large
quantities of explosives. The experiment was unsuccessful, as the
scientists of the Government insisted it would be. The Greeks had a
popular belief that when a host of their soldiers went out to meet
an army of Persians the vapor rising from the hot breath, blood, and
sweat of the struggling mass was later condensed into rain by the
concussion of the battle clubs and the hoarse cries of the victors,
and many of the veterans of our Civil War were firm in the opinion
that their great battles were followed by rains that were the result
of the cannonading. Both the Greeks and our American soldiers were
mistaken. Rain often has fallen at the close of great battles, not
because of the concussion of the conflict, but because rain falls
on an average of one day in three in the regions where most of the
great battles have been fought, and the movement of armies began
on the fair days when travel was good. If it were the custom to
begin battles on rainy days we would have the contrary and equally
erroneous theory that concussion clears the atmosphere.
=Prevention of Hail by the Firing of Guns.= Even a Papal decree was
not entirely effective in preventing the people in southern Europe
from ringing the church bells to prevent the formation of hail when a
storm threatened, and within the past quarter-century large grants of
public money were foolishly wasted in the firing by the vineyardists
of France and other parts of Europe of a gun specially designed to
destroy hail clouds. These guns sent harmless smoke rings a few feet
aloft. The writer felt constrained to employ the extensive machinery
of the Weather Bureau to counteract the effect of glowing accounts
of the success of these guns that were sent to this country by some
of the ignorant persons employed by this Government to represent us
as consuls abroad. Even though the hail-destroying guns occasionally
were choked with hail it was difficult for scientists to prevail upon
the public to stop their foolish and wasteful practice.
CHAPTER XVI
DEVELOPMENT OF THE AMERICAN WEATHER SERVICE
THE LARGEST AND THE MOST EFFECTIVE METEOROLOGICAL BUREAU IN THE
WORLD
Even to those who are familiar with the application of meteorological
science to the making of weather forecasts, and with the material
benefits accruing to the commerce and industry of the United States
from timely warnings of marine storms, frosts, and cold waves, it
will be interesting to note that at the time of the founding of the
first of the thirteen original Colonies, at Jamestown, Virginia, in
1607, practically nothing was known of the properties of the air or
of methods for measuring its forces. To-day electrically recording
automatic meteorological instruments measure and transcribe for
each moment of time at two hundred stations in the United States,
the temperature, the air pressure, the velocity of the wind, the
direction of the wind, the beginning and ending of rainfall,
with the amount of precipitation; and the presence of sunshine or
cloud; and three thousand voluntary observers each day record the
temperature and the rainfall.
That we live in an age of great intellectual acumen, and that he is
indeed a wise prophet who can even dimly outline the possibilities of
the next century, is fitly shown by the development of meteorological
science during the recollection of the present generation; although
one must admit that in the making of weather forecasts, valuable as
they are, we have not advanced beyond the partly empirical stage. It
is, therefore, improbable that in the making of these forecasts we
shall ever attain the accuracy acquired by theoretical astronomy in
predicting the date of an eclipse or the culmination of any celestial
event.
It was not until 1644, twenty-four years after the landing of
the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, that Torricelli discovered the
principle of the barometer and rendered it possible to measure the
weight of the superincumbent air at any spot where the wonderful
yet simple little instrument might be placed. Torricelli’s great
teacher—Galileo—died without knowing why nature, under certain
conditions, abhors a vacuum, but he _had_ already discovered the
principle of the thermometer. The data from the readings of these
two instruments form the base of all meteorological science. Their
inventors as little appreciated the value of their discoveries as
they dreamed of the coming great western empire which should first
use their instruments to measure the inception and development of
storms, and later, with the aid of the electro-magnetic telegraph, to
give warnings to threatened regions of the approach of hurricanes,
cold waves, floods, and frosts that have been worth at least one
hundred million dollars to this country during the past ten years
without counting the many thousands of lives saved among mariners.
Doctor John Lining, of Charleston, South Carolina, kept a daily
record of the temperature in this country as early as 1738, although
the accurate thermometers of Fahrenheit had then been in use but a
few years and the errors due to imperfect mechanical construction
may have been considerable as compared with the refined instruments
now used for measuring temperature. About one hundred years after
the invention of the barometer, viz., in 1747, Benjamin Franklin,
the patriot and statesman, the diplomat, the scientist, divined
that certain storms may move in a direction opposite to the blowing
of the wind and that they progress in an easterly direction. It
was prophetic that this idea should come to him long before any
one had ever seen charts showing observations simultaneously taken
at many stations. But although his ideas in this respect were more
momentous than his act of drawing the lightning from the clouds
and identifying it with the electricity of the laboratory, yet his
contemporaries thought little of his philosophy of storms, and it
was soon forgotten. It will be interesting to learn how he reached
his conclusion as to the cyclonic or eddy-like nature of storms.
He had arranged with a co-worker at Boston to take observations of
an eclipse at the same time that Franklin was taking readings at
Philadelphia. Early on the evening of the eclipse an unusually severe
northeast wind and rainstorm set in at Philadelphia and Franklin
was unable to secure any observations. He reasoned that as the wind
blew fiercely from the northeast the storm, of course, was coming
from that direction, and Boston must have experienced its ravages
before Philadelphia was reached. Reports indicated that the storm
was widespread. What was the surprise of Franklin, when, after the
slow passage of the mail by coach, he heard from his friend in
Boston that the night of the eclipse had been clear and favorable
for observations, but that a terrific northeast wind and rainstorm
began early the following morning. Franklin then sent out inquiries
to surrounding stage stations and found that at all places southwest
of Philadelphia the storm began earlier and that the greater the
distance the earlier the beginning as compared with its advent in
Philadelphia; but northeast of Philadelphia the time of the beginning
of the storm was later than at the latter city, the storm not
reaching Boston until twelve hours after it began at Philadelphia.
In considering these facts a line of inductive reasoning brought him
to the conclusion that the wind always blows towards the center of
the storm; that the northeast storm which Boston and Philadelphia
had experienced was caused by the suction exercised by an advancing
storm eddy from the west which drew the air rapidly from Boston
toward Philadelphia, while the source of the attraction—the center
of the storm eddy—was yet a thousand miles to the southwest of the
latter place; that the velocity of the northeast wind increased as
the center of the storm eddy advanced nearer and nearer from the
southwest until the wind reached the conditions of a hurricane; that
the wind between Boston and Philadelphia shifted its direction so as
to come from the southwest after the center of the storm eddy had
passed over this region; and that the force of the wind gradually
decreased as the center of attraction—which always is the storm
center—passed farther and farther away to the northeast.
Another man whose name is dear to the heart of every patriotic
American conducted, in conjunction with a friend, a series of weather
observations, beginning in 1771 and continued during the stirring
times of the Revolution. This was the sage of Monticello, Thomas
Jefferson.
During the first half of the nineteenth century, nearly a hundred
years after Franklin’s northeast rainstorm, Redfield, Espy, Loomis,
Henry, and other American scientists laboriously gathered by mail the
data of storms after their passage and demonstrated their principal
motions to be such as Franklin had supposed. Professor Joseph Henry,
Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, in 1855, constructed the
first daily weather map from simultaneous observations collected by
telegraph. He did not publish his forecast but used his large wall
map for the purpose of demonstrating the feasibility of organizing
a Government weather service. If there were no other achievements to
the credit of the institution founded in this country through the
benevolence of the English philanthropist, James Smithson, who, by
the way, never gazed upon our fair land, the work of the Smithsonian
Institution in connection with practical meteorology would always
give it a warm place in the hearts of those who believe the crowning
achievements of science consist in giving to the world knowledge
which results in the saving of human life, the amelioration of the
sufferings of human beings, and the acceleration of the wheels of
commerce and industry.
Although American scientists were the pioneers in discovering
the progressive character of storms and in demonstrating the
practicability of weather services, the United States was the fourth
Government to give legal autonomy to a weather service. Holland
established a weather service, with telegraph reports and forecasts,
in 1860; England followed with a smaller service in 1861; and
France in 1863. But none of these countries has an area from which
observations can be collected great enough to give such a synoptic
picture of storms as is necessary in the making of forecasts of much
utility. It would require an international service, embracing all
the countries of Europe, to equal, in extent of the area covered and
of the accuracy of its forecasts, the service of the United States,
which was begun in 1870, as the result of agitation by Lapham, Henry,
Abbe, Maury, and others.
The vast region now brought under the dominion of twice daily
synchronous observations embraces an area extending two thousand
miles north and south, three thousand miles east and west, and so
fortunately located in the interest of the meteorologist as to
include an important arc on the circum-polar thoroughfare of storms
of the northern hemisphere. Simultaneous observations, collected
twice daily by telegraph from two hundred stations, distributed
throughout this great area, renders it possible at several central
offices, where all the reports are received, to present to the
trained eye of the forecaster a wonderful panoramic picture of
atmospheric conditions. Each twelve hours the kaleidoscope changes
and a new graphic picture of actual changes is shown. The movements
of storm centers and cold-wave areas are noted and estimates made as
to their probable course during the next twenty-four hours. Where
else can the meteorologist find such an opportunity to study storms
and atmospheric changes?
In 1870, and for ten years thereafter, our forecasts and storm
warnings were looked upon by the press and the people more as
experiments than as serious statements. The newspapers especially
were prone to facetiously comment on the forecasts, and many were
clamorous for the abolition of the service during the first years
of its existence. There was some ground for the criticisms. We knew
nearly as much about the mechanics of storms at that time as we do
to-day, but we had not, by a daily watching of the inception, the
development, and the progression of storms, trained a corps of expert
forecasters, such as now form a part of the staff of the Chief of the
Weather Bureau, and from which the writer was graduated before he
became Chief. Along about 1880, mariners began to note that danger
signals were, in far more than a majority of cases, followed by
heavy winds; they began to reason that it would be better to take
precaution against storms that never came, than to be unprepared for
those which did come according to the forecasts.
It is a fact that many times, by the operation of forces not
indicated by the surface readings, the barometer at the center of
a storm begins to rise and the velocity of the whirling mass to
decrease. In such a case the storm signals placed in advance of
the storm center would fail to give the proper information. Again,
the storm center may suddenly acquire a force not anticipated, or
it may pursue a track considerably divergent from the normal for
the location and season. In this case, also, the forecasts may warn
some cities that fail to receive the effects of the storm. However,
during the past few years the staff of the Weather Bureau, which
includes the ablest meteorologists in the United States, has made a
study of the peculiarities of the different types of storms occurring
in the different localities during the various seasons of the year,
their line of travel and the force they may be expected to attain.
Competitive examinations have been held to test the comparative
merits of those who, by natural ability, are best fitted to correctly
and quickly correlate in their minds the conditions shown on a
meteorological chart, and to make accurate deductions therefrom as
to the development, movement, and force of storms. This line of work
and investigation has resulted in improved forecasts; so much so that
mariners now universally heed the storm warnings; horticulturists and
truck gardeners make ample provision for protection against frost;
the shippers of perishable produce give full credence to the cold
wave predictions. Of the many West Indian hurricanes which have swept
our Atlantic seaboard from Florida to Maine during the past many
years, not one has reached a single seaport without danger warnings
being sent well in advance of the storm; and few unnecessary warnings
have been issued. The result is that few disasters of consequence
have occurred. Large owners of marine property estimate that one of
these severe storms traversing our Atlantic coast in the absence
of danger signals would leave not less than three million dollars’
worth of wreckage. Twice a census was taken just after the passage
of severe hurricanes to determine the value of property held in port
by the danger warning sent out in advance of the storms. In one case
the figure was placed at thirty-four million dollars and in the other
thirty-eight million dollars. Of course this does not represent the
value of property saved. It simply shows the value of property placed
in positions of safety as a result of the danger signals and warning
messages sent to masters.
On January 1, 1898, an extensive cold wave swept from the Rocky
Mountains eastward to the seaboard. Estimates secured from shippers
in a hundred principal cities indicate that property valued at three
million four hundred thousand dollars was saved as a direct result
of the predictions sent out well in advance of the coming of the
severe cold. The utility of these forecasts to the agriculture, the
commerce, and the industry of the country is so great that there is
hardly a daily paper that does not publish weather forecasts in a
prominent place, and there is scarcely a reader who fails to note the
predictions.
Twenty-five years ago mariners on our Great Lakes and seaboard
depended on their own weather lore to warn them of coming storms.
Then, although the number of craft plying our waters was much less
than now, every severe storm that swept the Lakes or Atlantic coast
left destruction and death in its wake, and for days afterward the
dead were cast up by the receding waves, and the shores were lined
with wreckage. Happily this is not now the case, for the Weather
Bureau is ever watching the changes of atmospheric conditions,
and giving to the mariner warning of coming storms. Each observer
telegraphs instantly to the Central Office whenever the delicately
adjusted instruments at his station show unusual agitation. By this
means the inception of many storms is detected when the regular
morning and evening reports fail to give notice of their origin.
Some idea of the vast interests floating on the Atlantic coast may
be had when it is stated that 5628 trans-Atlantic steamers, with an
aggregate of 10,076,148 tons, and 5842 sailing craft, aggregating
2,105,688 tons, entered and left ports on the Atlantic seaboard
during a single year ten years ago, and the record is vastly greater
now. The value of their cargoes is more than a billion and a half of
dollars. Our coastwise traffic is enormous. Fifteen years ago more
than seventeen thousand sailing vessels and four thousand steamers
entered and left the ports between Maine and Florida. The number has
largely increased since. From these facts one can roughly measure the
value of the marine property which the Weather Bureau aims to protect
by giving warning of approaching storms.
It is the expectation of the meteorologist that some day he will
be able to accurately forecast the weather for weeks and months in
advance. What a wonderful conservation of human energy would result
if it were possible to tell the farmer when the great corn and wheat
belts would have abundant rain during the next growing season, or
when droughts would parch and wither the vegetation; or to truthfully
inform the planter of the South that the coming season would be
favorable or unfavorable for the production of cotton! Effort could
be withheld in one part of the country, and greater energy exerted in
another.
This extension of forecasting doubtless will be accomplished as the
result of further study of solar impulses which disturb the orderly
processes of the earth’s atmosphere and initiate storms, combined
with a comparative study of meteorological data. We may be laying the
foundation of a great edifice which shall adorn the civilization of
future centuries.
As storms of more or less intensity pass over large portions of our
country every few days during the greater part of the year, and as it
is seldom that the weather report does not show one or more storms
as operating somewhere within our broad domain, it is easy for some
charlatan to forecast thunderstorms about a certain time in July, or
a cold wave and snow about a certain period in January, and stand
a fair chance to accidentally become famous as a prophet. One may
select any three equidistant dates in January and forecast high wind,
snow, and cold for New York City, and stand a fair chance of having
the fraudulent forecast verified in two out of the three cases,
provided that you claim a storm coming the day before or the day
after one of your dates is the storm that you expected.
From the introduction of the electro-magnetic telegraph in 1844 down
to 1869 intermittent advocations were made by many in this country
for a national weather service. Finally Doctor Increase A. Lapham, of
Milwaukee, scientist and philanthropist, so aroused the property and
financial interests of the country with the facts that he presented
relative to the destruction of life and property by storms on Lake
Michigan that Congress, under provisions of a bill introduced by
General Halbert E. Paine, was induced to appropriate money to
initiate a service. To General Albert J. Meyer, Chief Signal Officer,
U. S. A., was intrusted the duty of inaugurating a tentative weather
service by deploying over the country as observers the military
signalmen of his command. From this beginning has evolved the present
extensive Weather Bureau, which is the largest in the world and more
intimately serves the needs of the public than any other.
In 1869 Professor Cleveland Abbe published a weather bulletin at
Cincinnati, based upon simultaneous observations secured by telegraph
from about thirty stations. He was the first scientific assistant
to General Meyer and remained continuously with the service until
his death in 1919. Colonel (afterward Brigadier-General) H. H.
C. Dunwoody, U. S. A., served twenty-seven years as an expert
forecaster or as the assistant chief of the Weather Bureau. General
A. W. Greely, of Arctic fame, the last of the military chiefs,
succeeded Brigadier-General William B. Hazen on the death of the
latter. Professor Mark W. Harrington was the first chief of the new
civil Weather Bureau; he served but four years and was succeeded
by Professor Willis L. Moore, who remained chief for eighteen
years, serving two years under President Cleveland, who appointed
him, and during the entire administrations of McKinley, Roosevelt,
and Taft, and was removed by Woodrow Wilson immediately on taking
office. Professor Moore claims the honor of having been the first
presidential appointee to incur the displeasure and receive the
public condemnation of Woodrow Wilson. The present chief is Professor
Charles F. Marvin, who for many years served as an assistant to
Professor Moore.
INDEX
INDEX
Abbe, Cleveland, 298;
publishes weather bulletin, 305;
his long service in the Weather Bureau, 305
Absolute humidity, 39
Absolute zero, 62
Aërial ocean, the air a great, 7
Aëroplane, importance of developing the, 27
Africa, and monsoon winds, 107;
hottest and coldest places in, 279
Agricultural interests, benefit of Weather Bureau service to, 301, 302
Air, great ocean of, around the earth, 7;
condition of, at various levels, 7-17;
liquid, 9;
blue tint of, 10;
thinness of stratum of, that sustains life, 14;
elasticity and density of, 14;
pressure of, 15;
weight of, 15;
everything evolved from, 15-17;
effect of cold wave on the, 36, 37;
explorations of the, 18-28;
circulation of the, 55;
increasing pressure increases temperature of, 61;
difference between weight and pressure of, 77;
course of a current of, 99;
earth warmer than, next above, 180;
cools with ascent and heats with descent, 184;
height of freezing cold in free, 185;
daily range of temperature in free, 185, 186;
movement of, in valleys, 204;
mountains and movement of, 205;
proper temperature and humidity of, in habitations, 217;
water vapor in, at various temperatures, 284;
retards falling raindrops, 285;
and the formation of cloud, 287, 288
Air travel, Major Blair on, 27;
Lieut. Col. Henry on, 28
Aitken, Robert Grant, method of counting dust motes, 44, 45
Altitude, gauged by boiling point of water, 60, 61;
wind’s velocity increases with, 109-111;
man’s adjustment to life at high, 186, 187;
temperature at high, 210-212;
amelioration of disease by moderate, 248, 249, 250
Altitudes, the cold and stillness in the higher, 10, 11
American Weather Service, development of, 291-306. _See_ also UNITED
STATES WEATHER BUREAU
Ammonia, 33
Aneroid barometer, volunteer observers and the, 66;
forecasting weather with the, 74-79
Animal life, necessity of oxygen to, 35
Anti-cyclone, general cause of, 98;
general whirl of, 103;
gyration of, 108, 109;
an area of high pressure, 119
Appalachian Mountains, effects of higher elevation of, 231, 232
Argentine Republic, Christmas Day in, 274
Argon, 33
Arrows, on weather map fly with wind, 116, 118
Artificial rain making, experiments with, 288, 289
Asia, and monsoon winds, 106;
hottest and coldest places in, 279-280
Astoria, Wash., climate of, 210
Atlantic Ocean, temperatures of waters of, 177
Atmosphere, of the sun, 2;
of Jupiter, Neptune, Uranus, and Saturn, 3;
carbon dioxide in, 5;
thickness of earth’s, 6;
how it is warmed, 8;
absorption of heat rays by, 8;
water vapor in earth’s, 8;
temperature of isothermal stratum of, 11;
gases of, in mechanical not chemical union, 32;
importance of proper proportions of gases of the, 32;
table of component parts of, 33;
beneficial effects of cold wave on, 36, 37;
dust motes and illumination of the, 45;
data meager as to circulation of upper, 103, 104;
storms and cold waves great eddies in the, 118;
variations in temperature due to motion of, 163, 164;
absorption of solar rays by the, 166-168
Atmospheres, how they are formed, 1;
how maintained and how lost, 5;
earth’s four, 29-47
Atmospheric air, composition of, 29-37
Atoms, early belief in formation of all matter of, 30;
present knowledge of, 30, 31;
composition of, 31;
of various elements, 31, 32
Australia, and monsoon winds, 107;
hottest and coldest places in, 280
Bacteria, and putrefaction diminish with elevation and over seas, 10;
absence of, at high altitudes, 43;
gathered by snow, ice, and water, 43;
destroyed by sunshine, 248
Balloon, use of, in meteorological research, 19;
record of temperatures at high altitudes by, 124, 210-212
Barometer, discovered by Torricelli, 23;
aneroid, 66;
forecasting weather with the aneroid, 74-79;
table for forecasting weather by, 76;
discovery of principle of, 77-79;
effect of storms on, 79;
low at Poles, 103;
data from, in meteorological science, 292, 293
Bathing, fresh and salt water, 249
Berlin, Germany, temperature of earth at great depth at, 179;
Christmas Day in, 271
Bermuda, sub-permanent Highs and Lows in region of, 159, 251;
climate of, compared with Florida and California, 256-261;
author’s visit to, 257;
range of thermometer in Hamilton, 257;
wind velocity and humidity in, 257, 258;
charm of, 258;
location of, 258;
influence of ocean on climate of, 258, 259;
character of islands of, 259, 260;
flowers in, 260;
wind and rainfall in, 261;
meteorological statistics for, 264
Bethlehem of Judea, Christmas Day in, 268, 269
Bismuth, nucleus of atom of, 32
Blair, Major William R., on air travel, 27
Boiling point of water, 57, 58;
as a gauge for altitude, 60, 61
Bombay, India, Christmas Day in, 272
Boston, Mass., influence of ocean on summer temperature of, 194
Bowie, E. H., National Forecaster, rules for forecasting, 151-153
Brazil, high temperature in interior of, 278
Cairo, Egypt, Christmas Day in, 272
Calcutta, India, Christmas Day in, 272
California, summer temperature of coast of, 194;
wet and dry seasonal records in big trees of, 236, 237;
climate of Bermuda compared with that of, 256-261
Calms, belt of, at equator, 99
Calorie. _See_ GRAM-CALORIE
Cape Town, South Africa, Christmas Day in, 274
Carbon, nucleus of atom of, 31
Carbon dioxide, in atmosphere of earth, 5;
one of earth’s atmospheres, 29;
functions of, 35-37;
seasonal proportions of, in air, 35;
proportions of, according to locality, 35;
injurious proportion of, 35, 36;
reaches maximum at night over land, 36;
dissolved in sea water, 36;
maximum at midday over oceans, 36;
density of, 36
Carbonic acid gas. _See_ CARBON DIOXIDE
Carnegie Foundation, investigation of big trees in California, 236,
237
Caspian Sea, waters of, have receded, 235;
again advancing, 235, 236
Centers of Action, 101;
permanent Highs and Lows in Pacific Ocean are great, 158;
influence of certain, on climate, 192-194
Centigrade scale, compared with Fahrenheit, 67, 68
Central America, changes of climate in, 238
Change of climate, mistaken ideas of, 225-230;
importance of, to sub-arid West, 229;
in period of authentic history, 233, 234;
in United States, 235;
simultaneous in Europe and America, 237;
east and west, opposite in character from north and south, 237, 238;
in Central America, 238;
in middle latitudes, 239;
in prehistoric times, 239;
as recorded by geology, 239;
shown by fossil remains, 239;
and civilization, 240;
author’s views on, 242, 243
Chautauqua lectures, author’s views on change in climate in, 242, 243
Chemical rays, a manifestation of solar energy, 49;
of light, 52
China, Christmas Day in, 272, 273
China Sea, and monsoon winds, 106
Chinook winds, 107
Christmas in many climes, 266-275
Circulation of air, 55;
general, of wind, 98-111
Cirrus clouds, 288
Civilization, influence of climate on, 213-224;
mistaken idea of change of climate and, 229;
must migrate with shifting of climatic belts, 240
Cleveland, President Grover, appoints Prof. Moore chief of Weather
Bureau, 306
Climate, 161-187;
difference between weather and, 161;
changes in, 161;
how it is modified and controlled, 188-212;
its influence on civilization, 213-224;
has our, changed?, 225-244;
influence of forests on, 240-244;
controlling factors of American, 243, 244;
how to find the, you seek, 249-252;
of Cuba, 252, 253;
of Porto Rico, 253, 254;
of the Hawaiian Islands, 254, 255;
of the Philippines, 255, 256;
of Bermuda compared with Florida and California, 256-261
Climates for health and pleasure, 245-281
Climatic conditions, optimum of, favorable to man, 218, 219
Cloud, temperature as affected by, 172;
formation and composition of, 287, 288;
difference between mist, rain, fog, and, 288;
fundamental formations of, 288;
characteristics of the, formations, 288;
fog is, at a low level, 288
Cold, contraction of air by, 15;
development of man favored by, climate, 224;
severest: in North America, 277, 278;
in South America, 278;
in Europe, 279;
in Asia, 280
Coldest and hottest places in the world, 275-281
Cold storage, efficient underground, 183, 184
Cold wave, scavenger of the air, 36, 37;
beneficial effects of, 37;
great eddies in atmosphere, 118;
and speed of storm movement, 123-126;
formation of, 124;
movement of, 125, 126;
detecting approach of, 125;
limitations on extent of, 126;
warnings of, by Bureau, 126, 127;
definition of, 127, 128;
maps showing zones of, 127, 128;
number of, 128, 129;
tempered by Great Lakes, 129, 130;
tempered by heat of large cities, 130, 131;
influenced by Rocky Mountain Divide, 131;
Weather Bureau warnings of, 301, 302
Colorado Desert, Cal., extreme heat in, 277
Columbus, Christopher, and the trade winds, 102
Combustion, rapid in liquid air, 9;
nitrogen will not support, 33;
and oxygen, 34
Commerce, benefits of Weather Bureau service to, 301, 302
Condensation, and variations in temperature, 163, 164, 282-290
Congelation, 174
Constantinople, Turkey, Christmas Day in, 271
Continents, circulation between oceans and, 105;
their influence on climate, 192-198;
characteristics of temperature of interior of, 194, 195
Contour of land, and frost, 86-97
Convection, and heat, 54, 55
Copper, nucleus of atom of, 32
Coronas, 141
Cox, Prof. J. H., and observations on frost, 93, 94
Cranberry bogs, and frost, 93-95
Crime, influence of weather conditions on, 215
Cuba, climate of, 252, 253
Cultivation of land surface, and frost, 93-95
Cumulus clouds, 288
Cushing, comparison of temperatures by, 196, 197, 215
Cyclone, general cause of, 98;
general whirl of, 103;
gyration of, 107-109;
the disk of air constituting a, 119;
an area of low pressure, 119;
action of the air in and around the, 120;
movement of the, 120;
general extent of, 141;
destructive force of, 142
Cyclones, localities in which, are formed, 156, 157
Dawson, Canada, annual range of temperature at, 169
Death rate, excessive humidity increases, 216, 217
Death Valley, Cal., intense heat in, 275-277;
area and forbidding character of, 276;
temperature records taken in, 276, 277
Deflection, due to earth’s rotation, 107
Density of earth’s atmosphere at different levels, 6
“Descriptive Meteorology,” 141;
reasons for change of opinion on change of climate expressed in, 233
Desert of Sahara, Africa, intense heat in, 279
Dew point, 38;
and frost, 89, 90
Diathermancy, 56, 124
Dirigible balloon, as competitor of railroad, 19;
importance of developing the, 27
Disease, elevation diminishes bacteria of, 10;
amelioration of, by sunshine, 248
Drainage, influence on frost, 94
Droughts, the breaking of, 136
Dunwoody, Brig. Gen. H. H. C., expert forecaster and chief of Weather
Bureau, 306
Dust, in the atmosphere, 33
Dust motes, absence of, at higher altitudes, 9;
interference of sun’s rays by, 10;
source of, 43, 44;
vary according to locality, 44;
counting of, 44, 45;
and diffusion of light, 45, 46;
and twilight, 46, 47
Eads Bridge, St. Louis, freak of tornado and the, 147
Earth, early condition of, 1;
death of, due to lack of heat from sun, 3, 4;
early condition of atmosphere of, 5;
transmission of sun’s rays to, 7, 8;
water vapor in atmosphere of, 8;
four atmospheres of the, 29-47;
comparison of heat of sun and of, 48;
circulation of winds and rotation of, 98-111;
deflection of winds due to rotation of, 107-109;
conditions if axis of, were vertical, 164;
variations of heat of morning, midday, and evening, 166;
change of seasons and the, 166;
percentage of solar rays reaching the, 166-168;
lag of temperatures of the, 168;
kept from freezing by water vapor, 170;
how the, cools at night, 171, 172;
great heat of interior of the, 178, 179;
a poor reflector, conductor, and radiator, 179;
temperatures at various depths in the, 179;
warmer than air next above, 180;
conditions if, were all land, 188-190;
if axis of, were perpendicular to plane of orbit, 188, 189;
conditions if, were all water, 190-192;
the real, of land, water, and inclined axis, 192
Eclipse, study of sun’s atmosphere during, 2
Efficiency, weather conditions and human, 216;
maximum and minimum periods of human, 217, 218
Electricity, and atoms, 31;
a manifestation of solar energy, 49
Electron, nucleus of all atoms, 31
Elements, nuclei of atoms of various, 31, 32
England, second nation to establish weather service, 297
Equator, circulation of wind and temperature at, 99;
belt of calms at, 99
Equatorial currents, 202, 203
Equinoctial storm, 140
Equinox, significance of, 140
Equinoxes (Fig. 21), 163
Espy, James P., his theory of continuation of storms, 156, 296
Ether, in outer space, 7;
transmission of sun’s rays by, 7, 8;
interstellar space filled with, 48;
man’s ignorance of structure of, 48;
transmission of solar energy through, 49
Eurasia, cooling of continent of, in winter, 106;
extremes of temperature in continent of, 195-197
Europe, sections of, where climatic conditions are best, 245;
hottest and coldest places in, 279
Evaporation, 58, 59;
cooling effects of, 74;
and frost, 92;
lowers temperature of wet soil, 180
Fahrenheit Scale, compared with Centigrade, 67, 68
Floods, influence of forests on, 240-244;
flow of, not restricted by forests, 244
Florida, climate of Bermuda compared with that of, 256-261
Fog, formation of, 92, 288;
and frost, 92;
temperature as affected by, 172
Föhn winds, 107
Forecasting, general rules for, 149-153;
importance of use of weather map in, 149;
the temperature by amateurs, 149, 151;
expectations of future, 303, 304;
fake, 304
Forests, exaggerated idea of influence of, on climate, 198, 200;
their influence on climate and floods, 240-244;
the author’s opinion on, 241;
as conservers of rainfall, 241;
mistaken idea of value of, as conservers, 243;
need of protection of, 243;
restrict flow of moderate rainfall but not floods, 244
Fossil remains, as evidence of changes of climate, 239
France, third nation to establish weather service, 297
Franklin, Benjamin, his study and theory of storm movements, 293-296
Freezing, of fresh and salt water, 173-175;
height of, cold in free air, 185
Frost, 85-97;
causes of formation of, 85;
light, heavy and killing, 86;
dew point in relation to, 89, 90;
black, 90;
locality and immunity from, 90, 91;
conditions conducive to, 91;
Weather Bureau observations on, 91, 92;
evaporation and, 92;
cultivation of land surface and, 93-95;
effect of sand covering on, 94, 95;
dates of killing, spring and fall, 96, 97, 287
Fuel, proper humidity and conservation of, 73, 74
Galileo, and the thermometer, 23, 292, 293
Gases of the atmosphere, in mechanical not chemical union, 32;
importance of proper proportions of, 32
Geology, evidence of changes of climate given by, 239
Germs, in the atmosphere, 33
Glacial periods, 239
Glaciers, movement of, 60;
recession and advancement of, 239
Glashier, English meteorologist, balloon ascension by, 20
Gold, nucleus of atom of, 32
Gram-calorie, unit of heat, 51
Great Ice Cap, possible return of, 240
Great Lakes, temper severity of cold waves, 129, 130;
benefit of Weather Bureau service to mariners on the, 302
Greely, Gen. A. W., chief of Weather Service, 306
Gulf Stream, West Indian hurricanes generally follow the, 133, 201;
influence of, on climate, 202, 203;
source and course of, 202, 203;
individuality of the, 203;
has no effect on climate of Bermuda, 258, 259
Gyration, due to earth’s rotation, 108, 109
Hail, formation of, 287;
and thunderstorms, 287;
attempted prevention of, 290
Hailstones, foreign matter in, 284;
formation and size of, 287
Halos, cause and nature of, 140, 141;
lunar, 141
Harrington, Prof. Mark W., first chief of new civil Weather Bureau,
306
Havana, Cuba, climate of, 253
Hawaiian Islands, climate of the, 254, 255
Haze, nature and characteristics of, 282
Hazen, Brig. Gen. William B., chief of Weather Service, 306
Health, north winds conducive, south winds detrimental to, 26;
temperature in its relation to, 216;
semi-annual maximum and minimum periods of, 217, 218
Health seeker, all-the-year climate for the, 252
Heat, expansion of air by, 15;
possibility of using earth’s interior, 18;
how it reaches the earth, 46;
source of, 49;
of sun and earth compared, 48;
manifestation and transmission of, 48, 49, 51;
difference between temperature and, 49, 50;
commercial and scientific unit of, 50, 51;
difference between waves of light, sound, and, 51;
conduction of, 54;
radiation of, 54;
convection of, 54, 55;
absorption of, 55, 56;
specific, 56;
latent, 56-58;
differing temperatures with same solar, 162-166;
great capacity of water for, 200, 201;
ocean currents distributors of, 201, 202;
extreme, in Death Valley and Colorado Desert, 275-277;
in South America, 278;
in Africa, 279;
in Europe, 279;
in Asia, 279, 280;
in Australia, 280
Heat rays, absorption of sun’s, 8
Heat waves, difference between light, sound, and, 51;
length of, 51
Helium, in earth’s atmosphere, 5, 6;
importance of manufacture of, 19;
nucleus of atom of, 31
Henry, Prof. Joseph, compiles first weather map, 296
Hersey, Lieut. Col. Henry B., on dirigibles and airplanes, 28
High-pressure belts, rains of the, 105
Highs, initiation of, 101;
placing of, on weather map, 115, 116;
characteristics of, 124;
conditions and action of air of, 131-133;
periodicity of, 132;
and warm waves, 136;
influence of certain, on climate, 192-194
Himalaya Mountains, and monsoon winds, 106, 206;
and climate of Asia, 206;
rainfall in the, 206
Holland, establishes first weather service, 297
Holy Land, formerly an abundance of water in, 235
Honolulu, Hawaii, climate of, 254
Hottest and coldest places in the world, 275-281
Human energy, climate and the distribution of, 220
Humboldt, Baron von, on civilization and climate, 214
Humidifiers, 72
Humidity, percentage expression of relative, 38, 39;
absolute, 39, 68-74;
tables of relative, 69-71;
importance of proper, in living quarters, 72;
diseases due to lack of, 73;
and conservation of fuel, 73, 74;
excessive, harmful to man, 216, 217;
proper percentage of, 217
Huntington, Ellsworth, comparison of temperatures by, 196, 197, 215;
on human energy, 217, 218;
on examination of big trees in California, 236, 237
Hurricane, West Indian, 133, 134;
the Galveston, 134;
nature and development of, 134, 135;
exposure of Atlantic coast to effects of, 135, 136
Hurricanes, general extent of, 141
Hydrogen, in earth’s atmosphere, 5, 6;
nucleus of atom of, 31;
and oxygen combined to form water, 32;
density of, 39;
combustible properties of, 39;
sources of supply of, 39, 40
Hygrometer, for measuring water vapor, 39
Ice, and bacteria, 43;
formation of, 43;
specific heat of, 56;
latent heat of melting, 57;
melting of, under pressure, 60
Ice ages, 239
Ice Cap, possible return of Great, 240
Iceland, sub-permanent Highs and Lows in region of, 159
Inclosed seas, temperature of waters of, 176-178;
latitude, season and depth change temperature of, 177, 178
Indian Ocean, and monsoon winds, 106, 107;
temperature of waters of, 176
Industry, benefits of Weather Bureau service to, 301, 302
Instrument shelter, 66-68
Instruments, in meteorological stations, 63;
for voluntary observer, 66-79
Invisible light, 52, 53
Iron, nucleus of atom of, 32
Isobars, on weather map, 115
Isothermal lines, ocean currents and changes in, 201, 202
Isothermal stratum, height of, 11;
temperature of, 11, 12, 211
Jacksonville, Fla., meteorological statistics for, 263
Japan, Christmas Day in, 273
Jefferson, Thomas, on the changing climate, 227;
records of readings of thermometer by, 232;
barometrical records of, 233;
loss of his barometer, 233;
weather observations by, 296
Jupiter, atmosphere of, 3;
and heat from sun, 3
Justice, weather records serve ends of, 79-83
Kansas City, Mo., climate of, 210
Kelvin, Lord, on the size of molecule of water, 30
Kites, in meteorological research, 19;
use of, by Weather Bureau, 22;
rectangular form of, 22;
observations from, 64;
construction and flying of, 64-66
Krakatoa, effects of eruption of, 43, 44
Krypton, 33
Lake Owens, Cal., waters of, have receded, 235
Lake Superior, temperature of waters of, 178
Lakes, influence of, on climate, 199, 200
Lapham, Dr. I. A., 298;
urges establishment of weather service, 305
Latent heat, 56-58
Latitude, its relation to health, strength, and efficiency of man, 218
Lead, nucleus of atom of, 32
Life, the atmosphere in relation to beginnings of, 2, 3;
thinness of stratum of air that sustains, 14;
how to prolong, 246;
in the open air and sunshine, 247-249
Light, slight refraction of, in higher altitudes, 9;
diffused by dust motes, 45;
source of, 49;
how it reaches the earth, 49;
a manifestation of solar energy, 49;
invisible, 52, 53;
and transparency, 56;
speed of, 162;
from the stars, 162
Light waves, difference between heat, sound, and, 51;
length of, 51;
velocity of, 51, 52;
and invisible light, 52, 53
Lining, Dr. John, temperature records kept by, 293
Liquid air, 9
Local forecasting, rules for making, 153-155
Lofoten Islands, temperatures recorded in the, 196
London, England, Christmas Day in, 269, 270
Loomis, Elias, 296
Los Angeles, Cal., climate of, 210;
meteorological statistics for, 262
Lows, the initiation of, 101;
placing of, on the weather map, 115, 116;
characteristics of, 124;
their influence on cold waves, 126;
conditions and action of air of, 131-133;
periodicity of, 132;
and warm waves, 136;
V-shaped, 137;
influence of certain, on climate, 192-194
Lunar halos, 141
Macready, Lieut. John A., altitude record of, 20
Mammoth Cave, temperature of, 181
Man, climate and the dominant races of, 213-224;
conditions best suited to health, strength, and efficiency of, 215,
216;
excessive humidity harmful to, 216, 217;
semi-annual maximum and minimum periods of efficiency of, 217, 218
Manila, P. I., climate of, 255
Maritime interests, benefits of Weather Bureau service to, 300-303
Marvin, Prof. Charles F., present chief of Weather Bureau, 306
Matter, early belief as to construction of all, 30;
present knowledge of nature of, 31;
determination of differences in, 31;
forms of simple, 31
Maury, Matthew F., 298
Mazatlan, Mexico, climate of, 209
Mediterranean Sea, temperatures of waters of, 177
Melbourne, Australia, Christmas Day in, 275
Mental activities, and weather conditions, 215, 216
Mercury, density of, compared to air, 15;
nucleus of atom of, 32
Mesopotamia, former fertility of, 234, 235
Meteorological conditions best suited to efficiency of man, 216
Meteorological science, in America, 291-306. _See_ also UNITED STATES
WEATHER BUREAU
Meteorological station, instruments installed in, 63
Meteorological statistics, tables of: for Los Angeles, Cal., 262;
for Miami, Fla., 262;
for Jacksonville, Fla., 263;
for San Diego, Cal., 263;
for Tampa, Fla., 264;
for Bermuda, 264
Meteorologists, association of aviator with, in map making, 23
Meteors, cause of luminosity of, 6
Meyer, Gen. Albert J., inaugurates tentative weather service, 305
Mexico City, climate of, 209, 210
Miami, Fla., temperature and rainfall at, 261;
meteorological statistics for, 262
Microbes of the air, 41-43;
functions of the useful varieties of, 41, 42;
and locality, 42;
and crowded habitations, 42;
effect of sunshine on, 42, 43;
dust-free air free of, 44
Milwaukee, Wis., rules for forecasting at, 153-155
Mind, effects of weather conditions on, 215
Mock moon, 141
Mock sun, 141
Molds, destroyed by sunshine, 248
Molecule, infinitesimal size of, of air and of water, 29, 30;
of raindrop, 282, 283
Molecules, space between, of gases, 29
Monsoon winds, 106, 107
Moon, a dead planet, 4;
absence of atmosphere around, 4, 5;
temperature of dark side of, 5;
has no influence on weather, 138-140;
and the tides of the ocean, 139;
no influence on crops, 140;
and halos, 141;
mock, 141
Moore, Prof. Willis L., experience at Chautauqua lectures, 19;
prediction of transoceanic flight by airplane, 19, 20;
experiments with small gas balloons, 21;
appointed chief of Weather Bureau, 306;
long service as chief, 306;
removal of, 306
Moscow, Russia, Christmas Day in, 273
Mountain air, beneficial effects of, 249, 250
Mountains, why peaks of, are cold, 8, 171;
effect of, on climate, 204-206;
and rain and snow, 205, 206
Mount Weather, Va., research work at, 21, 22;
value of work at, in World War, 24, 25;
altitude record of temperature at, 211, 212
Munich, Bavaria, record of earth’s temperatures at, 168
Neon, 33
Neptune, atmosphere of, 3;
and heat from sun, 3
New Bedford, Mass., daily weather records for long period at, 228
New York, N. Y., influence of ocean on summer temperature of, 194
Nimbus clouds, 288
Nitric acid, 33
Nitrogen, in atmosphere of earth, 8;
one of earth’s atmospheres, 29;
nucleus of atom of, 31;
debilitating effects of, 32;
functions of, 33;
absence of, above fifty miles, 212
North America, and monsoon winds, 107;
hottest and coldest places in, 275-278
“Northwester”, cause of, 117
Observations, great number and vast area covered by Weather Bureau,
298. _See_ also WEATHER OBSERVATIONS
Ocean, intense cold at bottom of, 175, 176;
temperature of inclosed seas differ from those of, 176, 177;
temperatures of Atlantic, 177;
latitude, season and depth changes temperatures of, 177, 178;
direction of wind affects shore temperature of, 178;
influence of, on climate, 192-198;
climate of Bermuda controlled by, 258, 259
Ocean currents, influence of, on climate, 200-202;
circulation of, follows winds, 200-202;
great distributors of heat, 201, 202
Oceans, circulation between continents and, 105
“Oldest Inhabitant”, hallucinations of, as to weather, 225-228
Open air, life in the, 247-249
Organic matter, in atmosphere, 33
Oxygen, in atmosphere of earth, 8;
and liquid air, 9;
one of earth’s atmospheres, 29;
nucleus of atom of, 31;
stimulating effect of, 32;
union of, with hydrogen to constitute water, 32;
functions of, 33-35;
proportion of, in free air, 34;
in places with restricted ventilation, 34;
necessary to life, 35;
causes of decrease of, 37;
ozone is highly electrified, 40;
absence of, above thirty miles, 212
Ozone, 33;
source of, 40;
characteristics of, 40;
effects of, 40, 41;
variation of, due to seasons and locality, 41;
effects of winds on, 41
Paris, France, Christmas Day in, 270
Permanent Highs and Lows in the Pacific, great Centers of Action, 158;
interference with storms from Orient by, 158
Petrograd, Russia, Christmas Day in, 273
Philippine Islands, climate of the, 255, 256
Pittsburgh, Pa., climate of, 210
Planets, quicker cooling of the small, 2;
lifeless, 2, 3
Plant life, necessity of oxygen to, 35;
carbon dioxide and, 35
Poles, temperature and circulation of wind at the, 99;
barometer low at, 103;
not the coldest points in the world, 280
Population, storm tracks and, 214-223
Porto Rico, climate of, 253, 254
Precipitation, factors controlling, of a region, 230
Pressure, difference between, and weight of air, 77;
belt of high, at latitudes 30° north and south, 99, 101;
indicated on weather map by Highs and Lows, 115, 116
“Principles of Human Geography”, 196, 215;
quoted, 219, 220, 236, 237
Putrefaction, bacteria of, diminish with elevation, 10
Races of Man, climate and the dominant, 213-224
Radiation, earth, 8;
of heat, 54;
and frost, 85-97;
and circulation of wind, 98;
earth and air cooled by, 171;
and temperature of valleys, 203, 204
Radium, nucleus of atom of, 32
Raindrops, size and composition of, 282;
falling or evaporation of, 283;
where, are formed, 283;
what causes, 284;
cannot form at great altitudes, 284;
velocity of falling, 284, 285;
air retards falling, 285
Rainfall, cause of heavy, in tropics, 104, 105;
monsoon winds and heavy, 106;
in Himalaya Mountains, 206;
average monthly, in North America and in the Old World, 207-210;
forests as conservers of, 241;
in Hawaiian Islands, 255;
instantaneous precipitation of all water vapor and, 285;
causes of heavy, 285
Rain making, artificial, 288, 289
Rain water, pure when condensed, 284;
collects impurities in falling, 284
Redfield, 296
Red Sea, temperatures of waters of, 176
Reflection, water rejects heat by, 172
Refrigerator, an economical, 59
Relative humidity, tables of, 69-71
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Christmas Day in, 274
Rivers, influence of, on climate, 199, 200
Rocky Mountains, influence on cold waves by the, 131;
effects of reduction in height of, 230-232;
records inscribed by waters on, 234, 235
Rome, Italy, Christmas Day in, 272
Rotation of earth, deflection caused by, 107-109
Russia, Christmas Day in, 273
St. Louis, Mo., tornado of 1896 in, 146-148
St. Paul, Minn., climate of, 210
Salt, in atmosphere, 33
Samoa, annual range of temperature in, 169
Sand, as a preventive of frost, 94, 95
San Diego, Cal., lowest temperature recorded at, 129;
meteorological statistics for, 263
Sanitaria, 250
San Juan, Porto Rico, climate of, 253, 254
Santiago, Chili, Christmas Day in, 274
Saturation, point of, 38;
dew point and, 38;
varies according to temperature of air, 38, 39
Saturn, atmosphere of, 3;
and heat from sun, 3
Schroeder, Major R. W., 11;
altitude record of, 20;
experience of, 20
_Scientific American, The_, on statistics of climate, 265, 266
Sea air, beneficial effects of, 249
Seasons, cause of change of, 166-168;
reversal of, in the northern and southern hemispheres, 169;
conditions resulting in no, 188, 190;
forces that influence and control the, 188-190
Silver, nucleus of atom of, 32;
best conductor of heat among the metals, 54
Sleet, snow and the formation of, 286, 287
Smith, Robert Angus, on carbon dioxide, 34, 36
Smithson, James, 297
Smithsonian Institution, 296;
activities in practical meteorology, 297
Snow, water vapor in congealed form, 285;
beauty and variety of crystals of, 286;
and the formation of sleet, 286, 287
Solar energy, transmission of, through the ether, 49
Solids, heat expands most, 59
Solstices (Figs. 22 and 23), summer and winter, 164; (Fig. 26), 167
Sound waves, difference between heat, light, and, 51;
length of, 51;
velocity of, 51, 52
South America, and monsoon winds, 107;
hottest and coldest places in, 278
Space, ether in outer, 7, 48;
temperature of outer, 9;
darkness of outer, 9;
the proof of lack of light in, 9, 10;
transmission of heat through, 48;
absence of atmosphere in, 48
Stars, size of, and distance from earth, 162
Statistics, tables of meteorological, 262-264;
_The Scientific American_ on climate, 265, 266
Steel, burns in liquid air, 9
Storm, in winter of 1893, 117-123;
Franklin’s study and theory of, movements, 293-296;
abnormal movement of some, centers, 300
Storms, terrible nature of, in early history of creation, 1;
general rules for forecasting, 75-79;
general action of, 115;
great eddies in atmosphere, 118;
movement of, 118, 119;
cold waves as affecting speed of, 123-126;
locality of origin of majority of our, 132;
general movement of, 133;
equinoctial, 140;
tornadoes, 141-148;
and their relation to density of population, 220-223;
ten-year record of, 221, 222;
area and movement of cyclonic, 231;
Weather Bureau’s study of types of, 299, 300;
peculiar action of barometer in some types of, 299, 300;
Weather Bureau detects inception of, 302;
frequency of, 304
Storm tracks, civilization follows the, 213-224
Stratus clouds, 288
Strength, temperature and its relation to physical, 216
Sub-permanent Highs and Lows, 158;
of the Pacific a bar to storms from the Orient, 158;
effect of change of position of, 158-160;
in the region of Iceland and Bermuda, 159
Sulphates, in atmosphere, 33
Sulphur, nucleus of atom of, 31, 32
Summer, difference in length of, in northern and southern
hemispheres, 169
Summer resort, an aërial, 13, 14
Summer temperature gradients in isothermal stratum, 12
Sun, atmosphere of the, 2;
conditions for beginning of life on the, 2, 3;
will be no life on, 3;
effect on earth of cooling of the, 4;
transmission of rays of, by the ether, 7, 8;
absorption by oxygen, nitrogen, and water vapor of rays of, 8;
and twilight, 46, 47;
comparison of heat of earth and of, 48;
mock, 141;
only source of appreciable heat, 162;
earth’s orbit around, 165;
cause of variation in heat of, reaching earth, 166;
absorption by atmosphere of rays of, 166
Sunshine, life in the open air and, 247-249;
destroys molds, 248
Supra-red rays, remedial powers of, 248
Tampa, Fla., temperature and rainfall at, 261;
meteorological statistics for, 264
Telescope, agitations of sun’s atmosphere revealed by, 2
Temperate zone, highest type of civilization found in the, 213-224
Temperature, of the isothermal stratum, 11, 12;
and water vapor, 37, 38;
difference between heat and, 49, 50;
proper method of taking, 63;
and frost, 85-97;
and circulation of wind, 98-111;
red lines on map indicate similarity of, 122, 123;
record of, by balloons at high altitudes, 124;
how amateurs may forecast, 151;
with same solar heat differing, 162-166;
causes of variations in, 163;
of oceans, lakes, and rivers, 172, 173;
extremely low, of ocean bottoms, 175, 176;
of water changes with latitude, season and depth, 177;
of earth at depth of 3490 feet, 179;
daily range of, in free air, 185, 186;
of interior of continents, 194;
of coastal regions influenced by ocean in summer, 194;
lowest recorded, at Weather Bureau, 195;
highest, July, 195;
average maximum and minimum, recorded by Weather Bureau, 195;
extremes of, in Eurasian continent, 195-197;
questionable effect of Gulf Stream on, 203;
influence of valleys on, 203, 204;
extremes of, on mountains, 204, 205;
average monthly, in North America and the Old World, 207-210;
at high altitudes, 210-212;
effects of changes of, on man, 215;
in its relation to health, strength, and efficiency, 215, 216;
and mental activity, 216;
proper percentage of humidity and, 217;
the optimum of, for energy, 218, 219;
regions of favorable, the summer, 250;
author’s record of, in Bermuda, 257
Temperature inversion, 171
Temperatures, lag of earth’s, 168;
annual range in air, 168, 169;
highest and lowest:
in North America, 275-278;
in South America, 278;
in Africa, 279;
in Europe, 279;
in Asia, 279, 280;
in Australia, 280
Thermometer, Galileo’s discovery of principles of, 23;
principles and discovery of, 62, 63;
comparison of Fahrenheit and Centigrade scales of, 67, 68;
data from, and meteorological science, 293
Thomson, Sir William. _See_ LORD KELVIN
Thorium, nucleus of atom of, 32
Thunderstorms, effect of, on Lows, 132;
cause, extent and movement of, 137;
frequency of, 138;
Highs and, 138;
temperature and, 138;
Lows and, 138;
locale of, 138;
and the formation of hail, 287
Tornadoes, 141-148;
extent of, 141, 142;
velocity and destructive force of, 142;
locale of, 142;
frequency of, 142;
rate of movement and general direction of, 142;
warnings of coming of, 142;
seeking safety during, 142, 143;
an American type of storm, 143;
presence of water vapor necessary to cause, 144;
use of weather map in forecasting, 144, 145;
not increasing, 145;
difficulty of forecasting, 146, 147;
freaks of, 147, 148
Toronto, Canada, climate of, 210
Torricelli, and the barometer, 23, 292, 293
Trade winds, 101, 102
Transparency, 56
Tropical zone, cause of torrential rains in the, 100
Tropics, rain winds of the, 104, 105
Tubercle bacillus, destroyed by sunshine, 248
Twilight, and dust motes, 46, 47
Ultra-violet Rays, remedial powers of, 248
Underground habitations, plan for unique, 180-184
United States, where climatic conditions are best in the, 245;
fourth nation to establish weather service, 297
United States Weather Bureau, experiments with small gas balloons, 21;
observations with kites by, 21, 22;
storm warnings by, 24;
and voluntary observers, 66;
method of taking readings by, 66-79;
ends of justice served by records of, 79-83;
and prevention of frost, 95-97;
maps prepared by, 112-160;
timely warnings by, 117;
when warnings are displayed by, 122;
warnings of cold waves by, 126, 127;
definition of “cold wave” by, 127, 128;
and tornado warnings, 146, 147;
on forecasting, 151-153;
rules for forecasting at Milwaukee, Wis., 153-155;
extent of area under observation by, 155-158;
comparison of crime and records of, 215;
rainfall records by, 237, 241;
record of floods by, 241;
and fake prevention, of hail, 290;
stations and observations of the, 291, 292;
fourth national weather service established, 297;
the result of efforts by American scientists, 298;
vast area under daily observation by, 298;
number of observations twice daily by, 298;
first work of, regarded as experimental, 299;
advance in efficiency of, 299;
growing faith in work of, 299;
its study of types of storms, 299, 300;
competitive examinations held by, 300;
warnings by, now accepted, 300;
warnings of West Indian hurricanes by, 300;
value of property saved through warnings of, 301;
utility of warnings of, 301, 302;
and warnings to mariners on Great Lakes, 302;
inception of storms detected by, 302;
expectations of future forecasting by, 303, 304;
first tentative, established, 305
Uranium, nucleus of atom of, 32
Uranus, atmosphere of, 3;
and heat from sun, 3
Valleys, influence of, on temperature, 203, 204
Vaporization, latent heat of, 58, 59
Vegetation, oxygen and, 36;
carbon dioxide and, 36;
and frost, 85-97
Velocity increased by altitude, wind’s, 109-111
Ventilation, detrimental effects of poor, 34;
need of, in closed or low places, 36;
in places of habitation, 37;
and underground apartments, 182, 183
Vera Cruz, Mexico, climate of, 209
Verkhoyansk, Siberia, extremes of temperature at, 196, 197;
Christmas Day in, 273
Vienna, Austria, Christmas Day in, 271
V-shaped Lows. _See_ LOWS
Warm waves, cause and duration of, 136, 137
Washington Monument, pressure of air at top of, 79
Water, density of, compared to air, 15;
infinitesimal size of molecule of, 30;
union of hydrogen and oxygen to constitute, 32;
and bacteria, 43;
commercial and scientific unit of heat and, 50, 51;
boiling point of, 58;
boiling point of, as gauge for altitude, 60, 61;
frost as affected by body of, 90, 91;
rejects heat by reflection, 172;
solar rays penetrate, 173;
temperatures of large bodies of, 173;
difference in freezing temperature of fresh and salt, 173;
salt, better conductor of heat, 173;
a wonderful phenomenon of fresh, 173-175;
low temperature of, of ocean bottoms, 175, 176;
temperature of, of inclosed seas and oceans, 176, 177;
latitude, season and depth change temperature of, 177, 178;
direction of wind affects shore temperature of, 178;
has great capacity for heat, 200, 201
Water vapor, and earth’s atmosphere, 8;
absorption of sun’s rays by, 8;
level of, 8;
one of earth’s atmospheres, 29;
density of, 37;
varies according to locality, 37, 38;
temperature and, 38;
precipitation of, 38, 231;
transformations of, 38;
and the dew point, 38;
saturation point and temperature, 38;
measured by hygrometer, 39;
and frost, 85-97;
protects earth from freezing, 170;
changes in sun’s rays effected by, 170;
a separate atmosphere, 231;
and raindrops, 284;
rainfall and instantaneous precipitation of all, 285;
and snow, 285-287;
and fog, 288
Waves, difference between light, heat and sound, 51;
length of different, of solar energy, 51;
velocity of, 51, 52
Weather, forecasting, with aneroid barometer, 74-79;
moon has no influence on, 138-140;
general rules for forecasting, 149-153;
difference between climate and, 161;
changes daily, 161;
expectations of future forecasting of, 303, 304.
_See_ also UNITED STATES WEATHER BUREAU
“Weather Forecasting in the United States”, 151
Weather map, value of aviator in compiling, 23, 112-160;
supplied by Weather Bureau, 112;
value of, 112, 113;
advantage of familiarity with, 113, 114;
method of compiling, 114;
collection of data for, 114, 115;
marking isobars on, 115;
Highs and Lows of, 115, 116;
indication of storm action on, 115;
arrows fly with wind on, 116, 117;
winter storm of 1893 on, 117-123;
temperature readings on, 119;
indication of storm center on, 121;
meaning of red lines on, 122, 123;
forecasting tornadoes by use of, 144, 145;
general rules for forecasting and the, 149-153;
Prof. Henry compiles first, 296.
_See_ also UNITED STATES WEATHER BUREAU
Weather observers, voluntary, 66-79
Weather observations, from kites, 64;
method of taking, 66-79;
extent of area under, 155;
practice of early meteorologists in, 155, 156;
advantages enjoyed by the Weather Bureau in, 156-158.
_See_ also UNITED STATES WEATHER BUREAU
Weather records, serve ends of justice, 79-83. _See_ also UNITED
STATES WEATHER BUREAU
Weight, difference between, and pressure of air, 77
Wendham, first to use multiple plane kites, 64
West Indian Hurricane. _See_ HURRICANE
Wheeling, W. Va., temperature of earth at depth of 3490 feet at, 179
Wilson, President Woodrow, removes Prof. Moore from office of chief
of Weather Bureau, 306
Wind, and pressure of the globe, 98-111;
why it blows, 116;
cause of variation in velocity of, 116-117
Winds, trade, 101, 102;
of middle latitudes, 102, 103;
rain, of tropics, 104, 105;
rain in the region of west, 105;
variations in coastal, 106;
monsoon, 106, 107;
Föhn, 107;
Chinook, 107;
deflected by earth’s rotation, 107-109;
velocity of, as affected by altitude, 109-111;
West Indian hurricane, 133, 134;
of Galveston hurricane, 134;
of tornadoes, 141-148;
of latitudes 30° north and south, 194
Winter resorts, with favorable climate, 251
Winter storm of 1893, 117-123
Winter temperature gradients in isothermal stratum, 12
Xenon, 33
Yakutsk, Siberia, annual range of temperature at, 169
Zero, absolute, 62
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Unless otherwise expressed in this book it will be understood
that all temperatures are recorded by the Fahrenheit scale.
[2] The author wishes that this were literally true, for he believes
that no great man or great woman ever was born from a mother with a
painted face, dyed lips, false hair, and a body pitifully distorted
by ungracefully ambling about in high heeled shoes. The power of
suggestion is so great in its influence on the plastic mind of youth
that a mother who is little else than a perambulating falsehood will
leave descendants wanting in many if not all of the attributes of
manly and womanly virtues.
[3] John Wiley & Sons, New York.
[4] “Principles of Human Geography”, Huntington and Cushing. John
Wiley & Sons, New York.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Some Charts and Figures have been moved to be closer to the text
paragraph they illustrate.
The very large wide multi-page table on relative humidity on pages
69, 70 and 71 has been split into seven parts to keep the width
under 75 characters. The wide tables on pages 262, 263 and 264 have
each been split into two parts.
Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within
the text and consultation of external sources.
Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added,
when a predominant preference was found in the original book.
Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text,
and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.
Pg 13: ‘important inform ion’ replaced by ‘important information’.
Pg 23: ‘co-operation of the’ replaced by ‘coöperation of the’.
Pg 62: ‘temperature of 459°’ replaced by ‘temperature of -459°’.
Pg 62: ‘and 273.1° on the’ replaced by ‘and -273.1° on the’.
Pg 70: Table: ‘20’ replaced by ‘30’ (Temp=63, Diff=15).
Pg 71: Table: ‘41’ replaced by ‘51’ (Temp=112, Diff=18).
Pg 131: ‘thousand of chimneys’ replaced by ‘thousands of chimneys’.
Pg 168: ‘depth of 20.2,° and’ replaced by ‘depth of 20.2°, and’.
Pg 210: ‘of Pittsburg and’ replaced by ‘of Pittsburgh and’.
Pg 214: ‘Humbolt says’ replaced by ‘Humboldt says’.
Pg 300: ‘deductions thereform’ replaced by ‘deductions therefrom’.
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