"EXPERT
————— ———
What makes the weather?
Sometimes in the brittle temper
but we really would-like to know
make our discomfort a trifle easier
a little about it, as if that would
to endure.
“too young to know” all the
That weather happens at all isé
due to three interacting factors: the |
warming sun, the turning earth, and
the presence of an atmosphere on
bur planet. Where the sun shines
It gets warm: we've all noticed
that. Where the sun shines on the
An Awesome Picture of a Tornado i
One of Weather's Freaks. |
air, the air gets warm. Anything
that is warmed expands and there-
by becomes lighter,
Air rises when thus expanded and
lightened, because cooler, denser
air from somewhere else tends to |
flow in under it and boost it up,
thus working toward a restoration |
of the disturbed equilibrium. Since
the sun shines straightest and hot-
test near the equator, and has less
heating effect near the poles, the
general tendency is for the cool,
heavy air to flow southward along
the surface, while the rising, cooler
air flows northward over it.
If the earth stood perfectly still
and had a perfectly smooth and
uniform surface, and if the warm-
ing sun went round and round it
(as in the ancient Ptolemaic astron-
omy), the surface wind would al
ways be straight from the north,
and the upper-air wind straight to-
ward the north.
Two Forces Act Together
But the earth turns on its axis,
and it doesn’t hang onto the air as
tightly as it does to land and water,
so that the air tends to slip a little.
If the north-and-south circulation
set up by the warming sun did not
exist, this turning of the earth
would give us a wind straight out
of the west, all the way to the top
of the atmosphere. But as it is, the
two forces act on the air together,
causing an air-movement general
trend from northwest to southeast
in the northern hemisphere, and
from southwest to northeast in the
southern.
But this is not all of the picture.
The surface of the earth is not per-
fectly smooth and uniform. It has
mountain ranges sticking up here
and there, which act as paddle
wheels or blades to cause further
deflections in air current directions.
And it has alternations of irregu-
larly shaped oceans and continents,
deserts and forests, which load dif
ferent air masses with differing
amounts of water, and also act dif-
ferently in squeezing that water out
of them again, condensed into rain
or snow.
The facts, then, rough out the
broad framework of the world's
weather-machine. In its details it
becomes terrifically complicated, Is
it any wonder that the weather
sometimes gives even the experts
who devote their lives to it a head-
ache?
Is the Climate Changing?
What is climate, anyway? What
is the difference between climate
and weather?
, These questions puzzle a lot of
people. There is a difference be-
tween them, all right, though the
dividing line is not knife-sharp.
J. B. Kincer of the United States
Weather Bureau puts it this way:
“Climate is the general run, or
sum total of weather, and that sum
total does not seem to be under-
going any fundamental changes.
Weather is the phase of climate
that we experience from day to day
and week to week, or even year to
year. Therefore, weather varies, of-
ten abruptly from day to day, due
to vast changes in air mass move-
ments. In other words, climate is
relatively stable; weather erratic.”
Thus, we can speak of the climate
as a more or less dependable thing.
If you go to England in autumn, of
course you take umbrella and rub-
bers; if you go to Southern Califor-
you do not. You count on the cli-
sizzle you in London in September,
or drench you in Hollywood in June.
human lifetime, or even in a whole
row of generations. Permanent cli-
lennia. It is suspected that the cli-
mate of northern Africa was
moister 10,000 years ago than it is
now, but we are not certain.
ter of a million years. The climate
of Greenland was once like that of
Cycles Are Irregular
Climate does have its fluctuations
—that is, prolonged “‘spells of
weather"
equally prolonged ‘spells’ of
posite sign. These are the “‘cycles’
you hear talked about. About every
thirty or forty years there is a cli-
max of drought, like the one we
are having now. In between, there
will be an opposite climax of wet
years. There may be other cycles
within these, and perhaps, even
rival and duration to permit of de-
Those of us who can
scourged the country then. And an
To those anxious queries, certain
pessimistic souls are singing
answer, in a doleful minor key: "It
less, it will: it always does rain,
eventually.
is not an explanation of its coming.
What does make rain?
Altitude Has Effect
riage of contrasts. It comes when
warm, moist air meets something
cold. The something may be a land
mass lying athwart a moist sea
wind. The higher the land
equal.
England and Ireland are gentle and
moderate, and that is why precip-
itation is heavier, and frequently
much more violent as well, on such
mountain heights as the Himalayas
and the top of Mauna Kea in
Hawaii.
But in normal seasons we get
plenty of rain, and frequently quite
violent rainstorms as well, in re-
gions where there are no mountains
at all—the open sea, and the wide
lowlands of the central United
States. Why there?
Even in mountainless lands there
are what might be called meteoro-
logical mountains. They aré masses
of cold air, migrating down from
the Arctic and meeting the warm,
moisture - laden air migrating up
from the Gulf. The normal thing
when two air masses collide is for
the cooler to plow under the
rises it expands, and as it expands
it cools. When it no longer contains
vapor state the water condenses,
first into microscopic droplets
or
coalescence of the cloud-drop-
lets into drops large enough to fall
as rain.
Frauds Flourish
Can't we do anything about the
weather? Must we just sit still and
let the rain come when it gets good
We can’t. We must. For in spite of
the old and oft-quoted corhplaint of
Mark Twain, there is as yet nothing
hat can be done about the weather.
crop of weather-making
as been harvested of
the drouth. These pseudo-scientific
suggestions always flourish when
all useful growth is scorched with
sun and perishing of
grow when even cactus w
The usual
¥
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#4
Rainmakers need only one kind of
fertilizer: money. They invariably
make the modest proposal: you
expenses while I do the
ny
every tenth
of an inch of rain that falls. No rain,
no bonus; only my living and travel
expenses, and the cost of the secret
chemicals used in my formula.
earlier generation found in a simi-
lar climatic depression the spur
that seni them rating to the
Oregon Territory. e of those
emigrant trains left wagon-tracks
across the dried bed of Goose Jake,
in Oregon. tly the e
re-filled. a ety of 1034
the tracks were again laid bare. The
cycle had fulfilled itself.
What causes these climatic cy-
cles? Nobody knows. Sunspots have
many champions — but also many
opponents. That is one of the things
on which the Sovtarp aul disagree
~and the patient is to suspend
judgment or take sides himself,
according to his own personal tem-
perament.
When will it rain? What will make
it rain?
rain falls, they take the credit—
and the cash. If no rain falls, they
still take considerable cash—for
the ‘‘secret chemicals” are inva-
riably expensive. Heads I win, tails
you lose: what could be a sweeter
racket for a smooth-talking ‘‘pro-
fessor” with a Van Dyck beard?
Older rain-making methods are
simpler and less expensive
for their practitioners. The magi
clans of primitive tribes imitate the
sound of thunder with rattles and
drums, or they throw water into the
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A mixture of one part vinegar
and two parts linseed oil, applied
that may be placed in closet.
» * »
be removed with soap and water.
Wet the spot with water and ex-
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longer if necessary. The scorch
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© Associated Newspapers — WN
art solution
A —
GROWING TO MANHOOD
Men never grow up into man-
hood as an acorn grows into an
TH
Come now to our cool shore for
finest surf and sun bathing,
dancing and gay social life, deep-
sea fishing, two 18-hole golf
courses, tennis, riding, and skeet.
CE Cavalier
Hotel and Beach Club
Yorpdm Sidney Banke
a ee
six hundred mem-
“American Industry's
On the reverse side, this medal
Phillips Delicious
Soup, Tomato Juice
and Canned Vege
tables were carried
in the commissariat
of both Byrd
tions
DELICIOUS ¥
HN
;
commemorates the silent courage
of an heroic leader who kept alone
“a six months vigil for meteoro-
logical observation at the world's
southernmost outpost. Before the
middle of the long Antarctic night
he was stricken desperately ill
from the poisonous fumes of a
faulty oil stove. Survival seemed
impossible. He deliberately chose
to die rather than tap out an
S. O. 8S. on his radio. In fact, he
squandered his strength and les-
sened his chance for survival by
painfully hand-cranking his radio
to keep his schedule and report—
‘All's Well’ Little America,
lest his silence cause his com-
rades to risk their lives coming
to his rescue in the darkness.
For months of the bitterest aver-
age cold ever endured, he hung
precariously on the edge of the
abyss. Untold suffering did not
compel him to alter his decision.
By a miracle he was spared.”
0
In 22 branches of scientific
knowledge the world is richer be-
cause Byrd and his comrades ad-
ventured into the Antarctic. But
far beyond this the world is en-
riched by the character of these
courageous men led by a
man who silently challenged
death in one df the great deeds
of all time . . . It is in enduring
recognition of such rare leader-
ship that the medal presented to
him is inscribed “Dick Byrd—
Gallant Gentleman.”