Our seasons are changing

1. West Australian (Perth, WA : 1879 - 1954), Tuesday 18 August 1953, page 2
National Library of Australia http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article49227350
Science Answers The Poser:
Are Our Seasons Changing?
"Funny weather we've
been having these past
few years." We often
say this in idle conversa-
tion, but how right are
we? Are the seasons
really
changing?
Last
summer
in Sydney
it
was so cold that ice cream
sales dropped 50 per cent
below normal. Melbourne had
similar trouble.
From April 1 to the end of July
this year, Perth had 63 wet days
compared with an average for
the period of 56.
The seasons have become so
mixed in Queensland that retail-
ers are seriously considering the
alteration of traditional dates
for launching seasonal selling
campaigns.
The Commonwealth Scientific
and Industrial Research Organi-
sation has tangled with the ques
tion of our
apparently changing
seasons and produced answers
for at least the south-east por-
tion of
Australia—portion of
South Australia, Victoria and
southern New South Wales.
In those regions over the past
35 years the days have been
growing cooler and the summers
wetter.
Researchers found that average
maximum day temperatures
over the last 35 years have been
between 2deg. to 4deg. lower
than in
aprevious period.
Not So Exciting
This looks a very exciting
dis-
covery until the scientists point
out that a couple of degrees
hardly matter a jot. On a warm
day, try to pick the difference
between 79deg. and 81deg. and
you will see the point.
you will see the point.
The C.S.I.R.O. measured over
a span of 70 years. Take a wider
span of 90 years and you find
that in Melbourne over the first
58 years of that period the aver-
age temperature was 58.5deg.
The average over the whole 90
years was 58.5deg. Exactly the
same.
Sydney can sing a similar song
to this. For the last 50 years the
average mean temperature had
been 63.5deg.; for the 50 years
before that it
was 63deg.
Our seasons are changing a
trifle, but only a negligible trifle.
What makes us mistake that the
change is considerable is the
outpourings of old-timers who
remember "endless sunshine" in
their youth and forget the rainy
days.
To discover significant climatic
change you must study centuries
and not decades. Then you'll find
that the world has been slipping
in and out of "little ice ages" for
several thousands of years.
Slow Process
At the moment we are slipping
out of one. The process
is
very
slow and undramatic in any per-
iod much less than a century.
Few effects are visible in Austra-
lia, but there are significant
changes going on in the north-
ern hemisphere.
Europe has become about 2
deg. warmer in the past 50
BY A SPECIAL
CORRESPONDENT
to 100 years. The glaciers are
slowly melting and receding.
Ships can move over the
White Sea for a month more
a month more
each year than they could form-
erly. Russia's North Sea lanes
are now open eight months a
year instead of three.
In Greenland, melting ice is
uncovering farms abandoned by
farmers when an ice age de-
veloped in medieval times. Cod,
herring, and other fish are mov-
The Deputy-Director of
Meteorology in Western Aus-
tralia (Mr. G. W. Mackey.
below, says . . .
.
. . "long-term
changes in
climatic conditions are tak-
ing place continuously.
"There is ample evidence
that these changes have

2. West Australian (Perth, WA : 1879 - 1954), Tuesday 18 August 1953, page 2 (2)
National Library of Australia http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article49227350
that these changes have
taken place in the past, and
we have tangible evidence
of glacler recession to show
that they are
continuing,"
he says.
"However, the changes are
slow and
they would not be
great enough to be notice-
able as colder or hotter sea-
sons during the average
person's lifetime."
ing far into northern waters to
the delight of the Eskimoes.
Since 1850, half the water in
the great Salt Lake in Utah,
U.S.A., has evaporated.
All this represents the
first
big
climatic movement man has
been able to measure with ac-
curate immediate observation.
What has caused the heating
up? You can take your pick of
a hatful of answers.
Mixed Theories
Most popular is solar radiation
—the sun getting hotter—but
don't insist on an explanation.
Johns Hopkins University ex-
perts suggest that the carbon
dioxide gas sent into the atmos-
phere by the coal and oil we burn
forms a gas envelope round the
earth and prevents the heat
waves that come from the sun
from bouncing back again.
Also, there is
the proposition
that subterranean heat is mainly
responsible. Most of this heat
will ultimately be released in
volcanic eruptions. Meanwhile,
it
quietly warms the earth, melt-
ing glaciers and ice.
Relatively slight temperature
changes in the northern hemis-
phere can considerably alter
climate. But in the southern
hemisphere, big temperature
variations would be necessary to
make a marked difference. We
have no local ice to melt.
We are, however, affected by
what happens to the Antarctic
ice
cap to our south.
It is
only over very, very long
periods that climate varies great-
ly on the earth.
Sixty million years ago the
climate on this planet of ours
climate on this planet of ours
was just about the same as
it is
now. Scientists say they can
guarantee this calculation to
within 5 per cent either way.
The Atom Bomb
Backyard climatologists in Aus-
tralia felt
they were on to some-
thing big after the atom bomb
exploded at the Monte Bello
Islands last year.
Although
it
was summer,
Syd-
ney promptly froze. Melbourne's
normally windless December
turned on 60 m.p.h. gales.
It
was too cold to swim at Perth's
surfing beaches.
This surely was
climate gone
crazy. But did the A-bomb cause
the conditions?
The scientific answer is
that to
keep one moderate hurricane go-
ing you would need the energy
of up to 50 atom bombs per sec-
ond for a period of up to a week.
Anyhow, why should we com-
plain so much about our wea-
ther and climate?
Our coldest capital city
is Can-
berra, which averages 44deg. in
winter, and holds the record low
recording of 18deg.
Call that cold? Moscow is
the
coldest capital in the world, ave-
raging 14.7deg. London is 40
deg., and Paris 38deg. The cold-
est spot anywhere is
the Siberian
village of Verkhoyansk, where
temperature was once 95 deg. be-
low zero.
The coldest ever recorded in
Australia was 8deg. below at
Charlotte Pass in 1945.
If your complaint is that our
climate gets too hot because the
average summer temperature in
our capitals
is
72deg., be grate-
ful you don't live in Azizia,
Libya, the hottest spot on earth,
where 136deg. has been record
ed.
In World Class
Should rain be your pet aver-
sion, we have a few spots in the
Commonwealth you might well
dodge. They are in world class.
Crohamhurst
Crohamhurst in the Blackall
Range, Queensland, collected
35.7in. of rain in 24 hours in
February, 1893. Only one other
place in the world has ever
beaten that effort.
To settle that trouble-making
argument about which of our
capital cities has the most pleas-
ant
climate, investigators re-
cently compared them on a
points system. Points were
awarded for humidity, wetness,
hotness and coldness.
If one
city had won in all sec-
tions, it
would have had the
least humidity, least wetness,
and would have been the coolest
in summer and warmest in win-
ter. And it
would have had a
total of 24 points.
No capital won in all sections.
Adelaide, however, came top
with 18 points.
It has least humidity and wet-
ness and was middle in the list
for coolness in summer and
warmth in winter.
Perth and Hobart both came
second with 15 points. Brisbane
and Melbourne were equal
fourth with 13 points.
Sydney ran a bad last with 10
points.
Still it's not much good worry-
ing about the weather. We've got
to take
it
just the way
it
comes
for nothing we can do can alter
it.