BUZZARDS IN THE SOUTH

Taranaki Daily News, 12 August 1930, Page 3

BUZZARDS IN THE SOUTH

SEA “GROUND TO POWDER” EXPERIENCES IN ANTARCTICA. CHARTING WEATHER VAGARIES. (By R. G. Simmers, assistant meteorolo.gist to the New Zealand Government Meteorologist and to the B.A.N.Z. Antarctic Research Expedition.) (All Rights Reserved). Meteorology during the last hundred years has been lifted from the state of merely being “weather lore” to the status of a science, and, as such, b as claimed the earnest attention of numbers of notable physicists. The deeper study resulting from this attention has only served to demonstrate what an exceedingly complex subject weather is, and has amply proved that it is only Iby understanding the fundamental causes of weather that successful weather predicting can be achieved —and it is by successful forecasts that the meteorologist is judged, especially by those three bodies of the public whose, very existence is dependent on the vagaries of the weather; namely, farmers, sailors and the organiser of the church ■ bazaar. So the problem before the r scientific meteorologist of. to-day is not iso much “what weather is there to be?” as “why is there weather ’’ and it-was with the intention of adding a further contribution to the solution of the latter, problem that meteorology was chosen to take a prominent place in the B.A.N.Z. Antarctic Research Expedition. The Discovery proceeded south from ■Capetown as a fully equipped floating observatory. The ship’s officers in their respective watches co-operated with the expedition meteorologist in. carrying out a comprehensive .observational programme. This undertaking involved two main classes of meteorological work —routing observations at regular hours and observations of a more specialised and technical nature to be' takeh when suitable conditions should prevail.

SYSTEM OF OBSERVATION. In the first class fell two hourly observations of direction and force of the wind, type, amount and direction of motion of’ the clouds, blueness of the sky, and the weather; and four hourly observations of barometric pressure, air temperature, state and temperature of the sea, and, when in the higher latitudes, ice conditions. To supplement these readings autographic instruments provided continuous records of atmospheric pressure, air temperature, sea temperature and humidity of the air. So much for the regular observations, which, in virtue of being standard all the world over, are suitable for comparing with those taken in other places. Measurement of the amount of snowfall and several minor observations normally taken at a climatological station of the first order were omitted, as the necessary standard of accuracy was not attainable on a vessel such as ours, which at times rolled 40 degrees each side cf the vertical. To the second class mentioned above, those of a technical nature, belonged observations of lapse rates (or the rate at which the temperature of the air decreases as one goes higher), insolation (os the total amount of heat imparted by, the rays of the sun), the motion of the air in the upper hemisphere, and the type and amount of impurity in the air. This present expedition made a new departure. As the expedition was planned and conducted as a summer cruise the scope of the meteorological programme realisable day by aay depended to a certain extent on the roughness of the sea. This was specially the case in the first three weeks, when on the run to Kerguelen the boisterous “Roaring Forties" were traversed. They lived up to their reputation as we approached our destination, when we experienced a gale which drove us far off our. course and kept the ship battling for some days. Kerguelen has a rather unenviable reputation for winds, but during the fortnight spent there in November it quite belied its name, and for the most part we had fine calm days. Not so in February when, on our return from the Antarctic, we again sojourned there, as this time winds were experienced I which would well make any place noton-

ous. From a flat calm the wind would rise in a couple of minutes to a 60 mile-an-liour gale, only to die down again almost as suddenly, an enjoyable calm spell intervening while it worked up energy for the inevitable further bursts. At the end of three .weeks of this state of affairs we were well able to appreciate the remarks of one chronicler, who states that he has seen the sea “ground. into powder" by the wind, A very apt description this, as at times squalls shrieking down the fiords with which the coast is indented would whip white spray fifty feet in the air. DISCOVERY HEADS SOUTH. Leaving Kerguelen on November 24 the Discovery headed south, not returning till early in February, two months of the interval having been spent in the pack ice zone. December treated us badly. This is midsummer in the Antarctic, yet there were only four days without snow, and out of a possible of seven bundled hours of sunshine we were favoured with only seventy-five; or only an average of two and a-half hours a day out of 'a possible of twenty-three. Even this two and a-half hours does not give an exact indication of the monotonous amount of cloud, as/ of the seventy-five hours sunshine, sixty occurred on five days, leaving only fifteen to be spread over the remaining twentysix days. . Januay, however, did its utmost to make amends for the rather churlish treatment meted out to iis by February and v.-e had many cloudless days with brilliant sunshine. An Antarctic sum-, mer’s day is a thing to be remembered, and it was with regret that we were obliged, owing to shortage of coal, to leave for Kerguelen at the end of the month, just when there seemed bright prospects of a continuation of good weather. ' Full advantage was taken of this fine weather to study the conditions of the atmosphere up to consdierable heights. Thermometers carried on the wing l struts of the aeroplane recorded ,the temperature of the air up to <5OOO feet. By means of rubber balloons, inflated with hydrogen until they would rise 700 feet a'minute, and on release watched with a special theodolite, which damps out the motion of the vessel, the direction of motion of the air up to .53,200 fee®-— 10/miles—was determined. In all 34 of these balloons—pilot balloons they are termed —were flown, and out of these 18 were observed to a height of over 10,000 feet, 13 to over 20,000 feet and Six to over 30,000 feet. An immediately practical use of these flights was the determination of air currents prior to aeroplane flights.