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THE IMPORTANCE OF METEOROLOGY: ITS RELATIONS TO MAN

We live in the laboratory of the earth’s atmosphere. The changes from hot to cold, wet to dry, clear to cloudy, or the reverse, profoundly affect us. We make and unmake our daily plans; we study or we enjoy vacations; we vary our amusements and our clothing according to these changes. The weather forecasts for the day in the newspaper are read even before the telegraphic despatches of important events. Sailors about to put to sea govern themselves according to the storm warnings of our Weather Bureau. Farmers and shippers of fruit, meat, and vegetables anxiously watch the bulletins of cold or warm waves, and guard against damage by frost or excessive heat. Steam and electric railways prepare their snow-plows when a severe snowstorm is predicted.

Meteorology, the science of the atmosphere, is thus of very great interest and importance. There is no subject a knowledge of which does more to make our daily life interesting. Since we live in the midst of the atmosphere and cannot escape from the changes that take place in it, we must, consciously or unconsciously, become observers of these changes. Examples of the varying processes at work in the atmosphere are always with us. There is no end to the number and the variety of our illustrations of these processes. Man is so profoundly affected by weather changes from day to day that all civilized countries have established weather services. Observers taking regular weather records are stationed at thousands of different places in all parts of the world, and the observations which they make are used by meteorologists in preparing daily weather maps and forecasts, and in studying the conditions of temperature, winds, and rainfall. In the United States alone there are about 3000 of these observers.

These observations are not made on land only. Hundreds of ship captains on all the oceans of the world are making their regular daily meteorological records, which at the end of the voyage are sent to some central office,1 where they are studied and employed in the preparation of Pilot Charts for the use of mariners. By means of these ocean meteorological observations, which were first systematized and carried out on a large scale under the direction of Lieutenant Matthew Fontaine Maury (born, 1806; died, 1873), of the United States Navy, it has become possible to lay out the most favorable sailing routes for vessels engaged in commerce in all parts of the world.

So important is a knowledge of the conditions of the winds and the weather, that scientific expeditions into unexplored or little-known regions give much of their time to meteorological observations. On the famous Lady Franklin Bay Expedition (1881-1884) of Lieutenant (now General) A. W. Greely, of the United States Army, meteorological observations were kept up by the few feeble survivors, after death by disease and starvation had almost wiped out the party altogether, and when those who were left had but a few hours to live unless rescue came at once. On Nansen’s expedition to the “Farthest North,” on Peary’s trips to Greenland, and on every recent voyage to the Arctic or the Antarctic, meteorological instruments have formed an important part of the equipment.

Not content with obtaining records from the air near the earth’s surface, meteorologists have sent up their instruments by means of small, un-manned balloons to heights of 10 miles; and the use of kites for carrying up such instruments has been so successful that, at Blue Hill Observatory, near Boston, Mass., records have been obtained from a height of over 2 miles. Observatories have also been established on mountain summits, where meteorological observations have been made with more or less regularity. Such observatories are those on Pike’s Peak, Colorado (14,134 feet), Mont Blanc, Switzerland (15,780 feet), and on El Misti, in southern Peru. The latter, 19,200 feet above sea level, is the highest meteorological station in the world.

The study of the meteorological conditions prevailing over the earth has thus become of world-wide importance. In the following exercises we shall carry out, in a small way, investigations similar to those which have occupied and are now occupying the attention of meteorologists all over the world.

1

In the United States, marine meteorological observations are forwarded to the United States Hydrographic Office, Navy Department, Washington.