The western sentinel. [volume] (Winston-Salem, N.C.) 1887-1926, 1890-01-09
is OUR WINTER CLIMATE cHAMGlNo4

IS OUR WINTER CLIMATE CHANGING7
There is good deal of discussion
going on in the newspapers with re-
spect to the unusual mildness of our
recent winters. There is repetition
of the often expressed belief that our
climate is becoming subject to new
conditions; that our winters are grow
ing milder and our springs colder.
The Baltimore San says: Last year
the winter, though not so warm as
the present one, was 80 mild that ice
was not formed in Maryland of suff.
Gent thickness to cut for storage until
the second week in February, and the
temperature began again to rise soon
afterwards. Subsequently we had a
prolongation Of cool weather until
May. This year the mildness of the
winter has already brought out on
sunny slopes and in sheltered places
the earlier Towering bushes and the
wild violets, is swelling the buds of
the peach and.apricot trees, and bring
ing the lilacs almost in bloom.
The old proverb that Gas the day
lengthens the cold strengthens" seems
to have lost its truth and significance.
That other old proverb that ga green
Christmas makes a fat churchyard,' .
although it was not verified last win
ter, may possibly prove true this win
ter, if the epidemic of influenza should
get strong foothold in the midst of
u.s. But that would not be so much
because of the mildness of the present
season as from the fact that all coun-
tries are subject, from time to time, to
epidemics that come upon them al
most unawares and spread from place
to place. The yellow fever, dreadful
as its ravages sometimes are, is hot
weather epidemic, and disappears on
the occurrence of one or two strong
frosts..... Cholera, also, is largely, al
though not wholly, a summer epidemic,
as it often fingers in Russia long after
the advent of cold weather. It is
equally probable. moreover, that if
the influenza were to encounter a
month or two of our old fashioned dry,
cold, equable weather we should hear
no more of it. But this does not ans
wer the question as to the cause of our
mild winters.
Many explanations have thus far
been given, but none of them entirely
satisfactory. Are we really expert
encing steady modification of the
conditions governing the temperature
of the whole world, or is it one of those
freaks Of climate, due to some un-
known cause, which is destined to
pass away and give us back our good
old-fashioned winters again Are
they governed by some laws Of periodi-
city similar to that which astronomers
have discovered with respect to sun
spots, which, we are told, increase from
minimum to maximum during a
period of eleven years and from the
maximum to a minimum during the
ensuing eleven years ? Or is it true,
as some surmlse, that we are undergo
ing one of those changes which, in the
worlds history and during the process
of many thousands of years, turned
the once soft and genial climste of the
Arctic ATTITUDES into an inhospitable
region of ice, which extended during
the glacial period into the heart of
Europe, until the temperature, grad
ally rising, forced back the ice to the
Arctic solitudes again, and establish
ing its boundaries there, as we now
know them, made the earth habitable
to man? Finally, is it true, as some
writers say, that even the Arctic
boundaries have been, within human
experience, slowing receding toward
the poles, and that our milder winters
are the consequence of this recession.
All these theories seem fanciful,
but the most plausible is that which
ascribes our mild winters to the opera
ton of the law of periodicity which
governs the appearance and disappear
ance OF she spot ON the SUN, and Of
the terrestrial disturbances that in
crease and decrease during tho same
period and are declared to be sub
ject to the same law