Evening star., 1938-06-19
HEAT is INCREASING

direction of J. B. Kincer, has been
making an exhaustive ANALYSIS of
temperature trends, and the findings
reveal conclusive evidence that, like
our winters, our summers are getting
warmer and warmer.
This general trend, one learns. has
been going on for quite a long time.
but within recent years it has become
sharply pronounced. especially dur
ing June, July, August and September.
According to the bureaus charts,
the average temperature has increased
by at least 3 degrees during the past
20 years, really phenomenal ad-
vance. For an increase of an aver
age of degrees means that there
must have been an extraordinary
number of unusually hot days.
That, of course, is what dad and
grandad have been noticing. They
couldn't tell exactly that the average
summer temperature has been upped
by degrees in two decades, but they
could tell that despite lighter, more
sensible clothes, better insulation, air
cooling. electric fans and a host of
other aids, our recent summers have
been more uncomfortable than those
of years gone by
Now, this does not mean that We
have not had cool summers lately
and that we won't have them again.
What it does mean, however, is that
the number of hot summers (mean-
ing summers with an above normal
number of above normal days. have
distinctly outnumbered the cool sum-
mers. That's why the average tenn
perature over the 20-year period has
shown such surprising gain.
For example, all can recall the out
standingly hot summers of 1880, 1884
and 1896. For illustration, take Au-
gust of 1886. Weather Bureau charts
show that only limited portions of
Texas and Florida and Northern New
England were cooler than normal;
elsewhere temperatures were from 2
10 degrees above the August aver
age. Temperatures of 100 degrees and
higher were reported over a large
area reaching from Winnipeg to the
Gulf States from West Virginia west.
ward.
August 10, 1886, was the hottest dav
in Oklahoma's history with an aver
age maximum of ia degrees, includ-
ing Texas, Arkansas, Missouri and
Iowa. At Oklahoma City there were
% consecutive days with temperatures
OF 100 degrees and more; at Wichita.
kans.. 20 days; at Fort Smith, Ark.
10 days. and at st. Louis Mo, 13 DAYS.
Ihe highest maximum reported bv a
first-order station was 116 degrees at
Concordia, Kans.
The increase in the number of
notably hot summers, bringing the
emphatic upward temperature trend
for considerable number of years.
has again raised the question, Us our
climate changing?"
The Weather Bureau experts have
been devoting much study to the an
parent long time weather changes tn
cool periods that seem to be less fire.
quent and Of shorter duration and
warm periods that are more pro-
nounced and persistent. It has been
thought that these fluctuations in tenn
perature eventually neutralize one an
other or smooth themselves out when
the longtime record is taken into ac-
count.
In other words, meteorologists con-
slider that climate. which is the normal
run OF weather for long period of
time. is fairly stable thing and that
the average temperature for, say. any
consecutive 20 years, selected at ran
dom from long record, would not
differ very much from that for any
consecutive 20 years so selected from
that particular record.
Now. however. recent studies by the
Weather Bureau indicate that this
conception of the stability of climate
needs revision and that the oldsters
land not so oldstersD who sensed a
change in climate were correct.
Getting back again to 1896, the bu-
reau's records show that for July of
that year all-time highs were reached
IN Kentucky, Iowa, Minnesota, Ne.
braska. the Dakotas and Montana,
and that previous highs were matched
in Missouri and the Northern Ohio
Valley States. The average tempera.
ture for the month exceeded by far
the previous high record in a large
Central-Northern area. At Des Moines,
Iowa. it was about degrees higher
than for any previouI July; Sioux City,
Iowa, degrees; Rapid City, S. OAK,
and many points in Montana, S de-
grees, and 8 degrees higher than ever
before at Bismarck, N. OAK, and
Havre, Mont.