Evening star., 1938-10-30
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'',%& 4
MEAN WINTER AHEAD!'
That's the verd'99 Of seiffniists who are
studyins1ons-range folecasting - and
they base it on an 11-Year weather cycle
bV ]. y. Rateliff

Snow should be plentiful this winter We
are on the rising slope of the moisture curve
which reaches peak every eleven years The
dry years are behind. Ahead lies series of
white winters and wet summers.
How do the scientists know that all this is
true? They don't. Nor does anybody else
Meteorology is still very inexact science. Its
followers feel lucky indeed if they can accu-
rately forecast the weather week in advance
Yet certain small tantalizing facts have
turned up that seem - the italics are impor-
tant - to give basis for long range weather
forecasting Take the discovery of that man
Douglas in Arizona.
Andrew Elliott Douglas was born in Wind
sor, Vermont He inherited his grandfather
astronomical instruments. got interested in
this science and finally landed on the staff
of the Percval Lowell Observatory at Flag
staff. Arizona. Interested in everything, the
personable Douglas dabbled successfully in
meteorology as we'll as astronomy He got par
ticularly interested in Edward Bruckner OF
Vienna who was maintaining that sunspot
activity and the earth's weather went along
together in a 35- year cycle.
The idea that the earth's weather might
follow definite pattern and repeat itself at
regular intervals charmed Douglas. Find that
cycle. check it and you would have the basis
for free ride into the future. And Bruckner
said he had found it. Had he? Douglas wanted
to find out.
ThoughtIessly. man failed to provide the
complete weather records needed for a real
check Records in the United States extended
back only scant 100 years. Couldn't hope for
anything here. Douglas decided. Then he had
striking idea. Maybe nature could help him.
Wasn't it possible that tree rings might have
far more ancient records? Narrow. scrawny
rings for years of drought; and wide. fbrous
rings for years when rainfall was plentiful? If
this were true the giant sequoias of California
would contain weather charts dating back to
1000 BIC.
Since the seQuoias were a long way off,
Douglas decided to concentrate on the yellow
pines of Arizona which were as much as a
thousand years old At sawmills. he collected
discs cut from old trees and studied the rings
From these observations he drew a weather
chart covering the past 100 years Next, he
plotted the weather conditions observed and
recorded. The lines we're almost exactly para-
lei! That meant that tree rings did preserve
accurate weather records - records extending
back to pre-Christian times. From the curve
that he plotted Douglas concluded that
weather tends to repeat itself in cycles Of
slightly more than eleven years each Further
more the tree-ring cycle conceded with the
cycle of sunspot activity activity which had
long been identified with the EARTH weather
On top of these things three tree-ring cycles
would fit into old Bruckners s 35-year cycle.
The Douglas tree-rng theory. which fore
casts snowy winter. doesn't attempt to
explain why one year is dry. cold, wet or
warm. 1t merely notes that these things are
true. Another man thinks he has found uhv
they happen. Forces beyond the earth are
for weather. says DR.. Charles
Greeley Abbot
DIR. Abbot of Washingtons Smithsonian In
isthe outstanding exponent of extra
terrestrial influences as deciding factors in the
weather. Upongraduation from Massachusetts,
Institute O( TechnolOpy thiS tall bucby