Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1891-02-25
The New Theory Of Cold Waves,

chduSoduio dS bue W6dCner, OUT IL lS SuDl6ct
to violent fluctuations. Time was when oul
cold weather was believed to come wholly
from the North Pole, or from regions to-
wards that point of the compass. On this
| continent our cold weather was supposed to
be brought almost bodily from Manitoba,
| though it was not 30 well explained where
the Manitobans got their refrigeration. A
cyclone moving cast Is attended, it was
said, by indraughts, some of which were
cold, because they cams from the realms of
Boreas, and others warm because they came
from the south. This transportation theory
is not 30 much in favor now as it was.
Savants have awakened to the fact that
they have got all the cold they want all the
time right up over their heads, and not ten
miles of, and to the further fact that we
| may get very decidedly cold in short time
BY radiating our heat into space II the afr
over our heads becomes for any reason ex-
ceptionally free from cloud and moisture.
NJ. Camille Flammariop, for example, is
positive that the great cold from which
Western Europe recently suffered did not
come from Russia. At the time when
France was shivering there was no remark
ably low temperature in Russia. On the
contrary the cold, he says, was less in Rus
sia than in France. SIS is not the north
wind" he says, fatty, 'that brings as the
cold" Cold waves, cyclones, &c., are due,
it is held, to disturbances in the upper
strata of the atmosphere, and their origin is
to be traced to movements which begin
somewhere near the equator.
But give us a perfectly dry atmosphere,
or no atmosphere at all, and we should in
evitably freeze. s'If the atmosphere did
not exist" says NJ. Flammarion, ''the heat
received from the sun would not be preserv-
ed for one instant upon our planet. The
earth would never warm and would rsnain
constantly frozen, because the earth rotates
in space absolutely cold, the temperature
of which is 273 degrees below zero. II the
atmosphere was very rarefied, such = that
which exists on the tops of high mountains,
our planet would equally be covered with
eternal ice. What is the element which in
the atmosphere is the most effective in pre-
serving the heat obtained from the sun? 1t
is neither the oxygen nor any other gas, but
it is the steam of the water, which is eigh-
teen thousand times moro effective to pre-
serve heat than q moleoule Of dry air.
Thanks to this precious facRlsy, the stmos
paere acts like veritabls hot-house and
bottles in the solar heat, prevents 1t from
shining off the earth and losing itself in
glacial space"
M. Flammarion does not deny that there
is wind from the north when very coid
weather is experienced, but the cold il due,
he thinks, not so much to the ooldness Of
the air that comes to US from the north ~
to its dryness. Seing very dry, it fsvors
radiation Of our heat into space. Our situa-
tion under very dry air coming from Q
that of plants in het-houss whsn part of
the glass roof is removed, The sun may
shine, but the material which confines its
heat is wanting. The sans heat, moreover,
is weak in December and January. Ths
days are short and the suns rays come
obliquely. The effect Of Q moisturelsss at
mosphere is felt scutely in the Desert of
Sahara, where the nights are bitter cold by
reason cf the easy radiation from the heated
sands. The hot air about the equator, rising
laden with moisture to . great distance
above the earth, flows northwsra to the
Arctic regions, where it drops its burden in
the form of snow, and returns again toward
the equator as cold surface current.
Hence the cold climate Of Sibcyia, made
colder by the absencs of bodies of water,
which might resaturate the dry arctic air
and prevent radiation. Undoubtedly our
meteorologists, as the New York Herald
suggests, have been accustomed to take too
narrow a view of the problems with which
they have to deal. The cold wave and cy-
close are both incidents Of large movements
of the upper atmospheric current. Tne
Herald is no doubt right in its view that
only by the use of captive balloons, carry
ing self-registering instrunsnts, can We
ever properly study the upper currents up
on which our terrestrial weather ultimately
depends.