Evening star., 1940-03-18
BY THOMAS r. HENRY,

BY THOMAS r. HENRY.
One of the greatest living experts
on world weather, whose records,
gathered during a lifetime, prob
ably were lost irrevocably in the
Russian invasion of Poland, has
started work anew in the United
States on the job of determining
direct effects of changes on the
sun on climatic conditions on earth.
He is DR.. Henryke Arctowski, one
of Poland's foremost scientists. for
mer Antarctic explorer and color
full figure in many scientific con-
claves.
He came to the United States to
attend an international scientific
congress in September and found
himself marooned in Washington
when his country was overwhelmed
by the joint German and Russian
invasions. All his property, money
and records were at Lvov, which was
occupied by the Russians.
Perhaps the greatest loss is the
concluding volume OF his work on
dynamic. climatology, containing OBJ
servationS of years on worldwide
variations in atmospheric pressure,
rainfall and temperatures He had
started collecting tAAIE E1aa9 young
geologist on the Antarctic exploring
ship Belgica in 1879. Fortunately
the first seven volumes already had
been published
Significant Findings Made.
He was given a position at the
Smithsonian Institution and has
started with renewed enthusiasm on
the correlation of sun and earth
happenings from the records of the
Astrophysical Observatory of the
institution. He has already made
significant, although for the present
tentative, findings of apparent
cause-and-effect relationships. be-
tween the variations of the suns
rays and earthly weather conditions.
All his life, he says, he had been
a skeptic on the possibility of meas
uring the suns variation accurately
enough to establish direct relation
ships with weather. The obstacle to
direct measurements encountered in
the changing atmosphere of the
earth through which the sun must
be observed, he thought, was too
great to be overcome.
He now is convinced, he declared,
that this is not the case and that
IN this direction lies much of the
future of weather forecasting.
Among his findings is that of an
intimate relationship between sun
spots and the varying heat of the
sun itself. A sunspot is considered
a titanic whirlwind in the suns at
mosphere 1t apparently starts with
an explosion. A darkened area, or
sunspot umbra, represents the extent
OF the whirlwind set up. These ex-
plosions, DR.. Arctowski says, occur
when the sun gets hotter. They are
the result, rather than the cause.
The cause always precedes the re-
suit. Consequently the maximum of
solar heat precedes, as might be
expected, the maximum of explo-
sion intensity. There is about
day-and-a-haf lag, he finds.
North American Records Studied,
Direct application to prediction of
meteorological conditions on earth is
much more complicated and now
awaits more accurate and numerous
measurements of the solar con-
stant,' the measure of the varying
hest output OF the sun.
DR.. Arctowski is making an in
tensive study of North American
climatic records. He has already
developed evidence the solar varia-
tions govern barometric pressure
gradients in the Eastern United
States. A tentative formula has
been worked out for the relations
between day-by-day solar changes
and the weather of New York City.
The records show, he says, that
there a temperature wave has two
maxima and two minima. One Of
each pair, the first and most pro-
nounced, is so closely related in time
to the solar constant variations that
there can be little question OF a
cause-and-effect relationship. The
other maximum and minimum of
each wave follow five to six DAYS
after the primary ones and are
doubtless due to the arrival of
waves from distant centers started
by the solar changes.
They can be attributed, DR.. Arc
towski believes, to effects Of the
changing solar heat output on the
atmospheric circulation over the en-
tire continent. This has a delayed
effect on the temperature of any
particular place and Is one of the
highly complicating factors in
weather forecasting by solar con-
slant variations. Thus the pattern
for New York might not apply any,
where else in the world.
DR.. Arctowski Is confronted with
an immense assembly Of records.
Out of them, he is confident, 1t will
be possible to find relationships be-
tween sun conditions and rainfall,
pressure and other factors Of climate