Scientific Serials

Abstract

Meteorologische Zeitschrift, February.—Results of the international balloon ascent, by Dr. H. Hergesell. This is the first of a proposed series of papers; the present one deals principally with the range of temperature, as shown by observations made in a captive balloon at Strassburg on June 7 and 8, 1898. The results prove that in strata of free air, whose height exceeds a few hundred metres, the temperature possesses an extremely small diurnal range. During the night it scarcely amounts to a few tenths of a degree; while in the daytime a variation of some three or four degrees Centigrade may occur, even at a height of 800 metres, when vertical air currents exist. In the absence of these, the range would, in all probability, sink to a very low value.—On the characteristics of mild winters, by Dr. G. Hellmann. The last two mild winters have induced the author to revise his previous researches upon this subject, and he gives particulars of the 51 mild winters experienced in Berlin during the last 180 years. The principal results arrived at are: that mild winters scarcely ever occur singly, but in groups of two or three; that they are usually of long duration, from November to February or March; severe and long, late winters (February and March) seldom occur after mild mid-winters; in mild mid-winters the greatest variations of temperature usually occur in January. After a very mild winter, a warm summer is more probable than after a winter which is only moderately mild. Dr. Hellmann pleads for synoptic charts for the whole globe—at least for short intervals, if longer periods cannot be undertaken.