Meteorological Influences of the Sun and the Atlantic¹

Abstract

THE prospects of long-period weather forecasting and the explanation of major variations of climate appear to rest on two lines of investigation. The effort of the first is to connect changes in the weather with those in oceanic circulation; the second attributes the changes to variations in the heat supply of the sun acting through the atmospheric circulation. Each theory has its own a priori probability. The oceanic control of climate has the attraction that each ocean is a potential refrigerator, since it is a reservoir of almost icecold water, which, if raised to the surface, must chill the air, disturb the winds, and enable polar ice to drift further into the temperate seas. Hence Meinardus, for example, connected the range of ice in the Icelandic seas and harvests in Germany with variations in the surface waters of the North Atlantic. The alternative theory has the recommendation that, since the earth receives its heat supply from the sun, variation in solar activity is the natural cause of climatic change.