Circulation of the Earth's Atmosphere

Abstract

AT the International Meteorological Conference at Utrecht in September 1923, a resolution was passed that arose from a proposal of the late Prof. Exner for the calculation of coefficients of correlation between weather anomalies in distant parts of the world. This resolution was to the effect that long and homogonoous scries of observations of pressure, temperature and rainfall should be published with the view of furthering the study of the general circulation of the earth's atmosphere; that a small number of stations at a mutual distance of 500-1,000 kilometres should bo included, preferably stations belonging to the Roseau Mondial (a network of stations for which annual summaries are published); and that this material for publication should be collected with the aid of various meteorological institutes, the long series being taken up to the year 1920. This resolution took shape in vol. 79 of tho Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections under the title “World Weather Records”, to which has been added recently a supplementary volume with the same title covering the period 1921-30, but also including some summaries of long records that were not available in time for vol. 79. The new material occupies the whole of vol. No. 90 of the same series of Miscellaneous Collections, the cost of publication being met by a grant from Mr. John A. Roebling. It is scarcely necessary to point out the advantage to students of world weather of a collection of data of this kind, which gathers together in a compact form material that is often obtainable only at great troublo and expense. It can be used by those who carry out statistical studies with the view of establishing equations for long-period forecasting on the lines developed by Sir Gilbert Walker and others, and also for the study of periodicities, while the addition of monthly sunspot and solar radiation data makes it possible to add the study of solar-terrestrial relationships. The supplementary material includes the long Edinburgh series, which goes back to 1731 for temperature and to 1770 for precipitation.