524 



NA TURE 



[October 6, 1923 



appointed by each Conference to act until the meeting 

 of the next Conference, and is to all intents and pur- 

 poses the executive Ixxly of the Conference, for it 

 carries out the decisions of the past Conference and 

 prepares the business of the next. Each member of 

 the Committee must belong to a separate country 

 and must be the director of an independent meteoro- 

 logical establishment. Commissions are appointed 

 by the Committee " to advance the study of special 

 questions," and members are appointed simply from 

 the point of view of their personal qualifications to 

 assist the work of the Commission. In this way the 

 assistance of men of science and private gentlemen 

 unassociated with official services is made available 

 and freely used. 



When the Conference met in Paris in 1919 the 

 political state of the world was so abnormal that 

 mvitations could not be sent to some countries, and 

 many other countries were not able to be represented. 

 It was therefore felt that another Conference should 

 be called as soon as conditions became more favour- 

 able and all countries without exception could meet 

 in council. When the International Meteorological 

 Committee met in London in 192 1 it was considered 

 that such a time was rapidly approaching, and the 

 invitation of Prof, van Everdingen, director of the 

 De Bilt Observatory, Holland, for a meeting of the 

 Conference in Utrecht during 1923 was accepted. 

 The return to normal political relationship has not 

 been so rapid as was expected, and the troubles of 

 the early months of 1923 made it look at one time as 

 if the Conference would have to be postponed, but 

 it was finally decided not to cancel the invitations 

 which had been despatched in December 1922, and 

 this course has been justified by the successful meet- 

 ings of the Conference held in Utrecht on September 

 7-14. 



The meetings of the Conference were preceded and 

 followed by meetings of several Commissions. The 

 Commissions for Agricultural Meteorology, Solar 

 Radiation, Terrestrial Magnetism and Atmospheric 

 Electricity, Weather Telegraphy and Maritime Meteor- 

 ology were held before the Conference (September 

 3-6), and the Commission for the Study of Clouds 

 and the Commission for the Upper Air met after the 

 Conference (September 14). For the meetings of 

 the Commissions and Conference fifty members were 

 present from Argentine (i), Austria (i), Belgium (2), 

 Brazil (i), Denmark (i), Spain (2), F"inland (i), France 

 (5), Great Britain (5), India (i), Japan (4), Norway 

 (3), Holland (11), Poland (2), Portugal (i), Russia 

 (2), Sweden (3), Switzerland (2), Czecho-Slovakia (2). 

 At the first meeting of the Conference on Friday, 

 September 7, Sir Napier Shaw (Great Britain) was 

 elected president, and Dr. Hesselberg (Norw^ay) 

 secretary-general. After the president's address had 

 been delivered and certain business matters disposed 

 of, it was decided to remit all reports and resolutions 

 submitted to the Conference to five sub-commissions 

 for preliminary consideration and the preparation 

 of suitable recommendations. This distribution 

 occupied the greater part of the meeting on Friday 

 afternoon, when the Conference adjourned until the 

 following Tuesday to give the commissions time to 

 prepare their reports. When the Conference re- 

 assembled on Tuesday it worked very hard for three 

 days considering the sixty odd resolutions submitted 

 for its approval. 



The great development of the use of wireless tele- 

 graphy in the dissemination of meteorological data 

 has necessitated very intricate co-operation between 

 meteorological services all over the world, especially 

 in Europe. As the information is distributed broad- 

 cast for the use of any one who caxes to receive it, it 



is highly desirable tliat the messages i.ssued in tli( 

 various countries should be of the same form and m 

 the same code. As the result of untiring work u\ 

 the Weather Telegraphy Commission under th- 

 guidance of its energetic president, Lieut. -Col ' 

 the New International Co<lc is now used by twetr 

 meteorological services. The arrangement ot ti- 

 times of issue of the wireless messages to prevent 



interference is also a difficult matter n' 



close co-operation. It is not surpn 

 that twenty resolutions were submit if. i 

 ference by the Weather Telegraphy C < 

 These dealt with such questions as the \N' 

 interpretation of the code, times of issue, ■ 

 of the stations, reduction of pressure to 

 additional observations, and the establishment 01 

 sub-commissions to watch the working of the cod<- 

 and to study proposals for improvements. A neu 

 departure was the agreement to add a new group of 

 figures to certain messages, to allow experiments to 

 be made of a new method of forecasting, based on ;i 

 close study of cloud forms, which has recently been 

 developed by the French Meteorological Office. It 

 was very gratifying that it was not found nee 

 to alter the International Code, for it is extr 

 difficult to carry through a change when so 

 services are concerned, and it would jeopardise . 

 progress made towards the use of a uniform nii:?..>aL;t 

 if changes were made by some and not by others. 



The resolutions submitted by the Commission for 

 Maritime Meteorology were less numerous, but the\ 

 contained references to several remarkable advances 

 towards the extension of synoptic methods to ships 

 at sea. The Commission recommended the adoi)ti"i: 

 of a code to be used for wireless weather mt 

 sent out from ships. The code consists of 

 groups of figures, the first four of which are calleti 

 universal groups and will be the same for all ships 

 in all parts of the world ; the second four, called 

 national groups, will be different according to the 

 office which organises the issue, and will be designed 

 to meet the dilferent needs of the various services. 

 This proposal, which was accepted by the Conference, 

 marks a great advance in international co-operation 

 in all parts of the world. The Conference also re- 

 corded its appreciation of the work performed on 

 board the Jacques Cartier. This is a French ship 

 which has made experiments during voyages betvveen 

 America and Europe of collecting meteorological 

 information by wireless telegraphy from ships and 

 shore, preparing a meteorological chcirt of the 

 Atlantic, and then broadcasting forecasts for the use 

 of ships. The Jacques Cartier carries an officer of 

 the mercantile marine trained in the French Meteoro- 

 logical Office, who is assisted by a clerk lent by that 

 office. Further developments along these lines are 

 to be expected. 



The power of the method of " correlation " when 

 applied to meteorological data is now generally 

 recognised by meteorologists. The success of Dr. 

 G. T. Walker, who employs this method in his fore- 

 casts of the Indian monsoon, is well known. Such 

 work, however, fails unless homogeneous data ex- 

 tending over a long period are available. Prof. 

 Exner, of Vienna, brought this matter before the 

 Conference, and a resolution was adopted expressing 

 the opinion that the publication of long and homo- 

 geneous data from a number of stations at distances 

 of about 500 or 1000 kilometres from one another 

 would be of great value. Not content with express- 

 ing this opinion, the Conference asked Dr. G. T. 

 W^alker to supervise the working of the resolution 

 so far as Asia is concerned, and similarly Prof. F. M. 

 Exner for Europe, Mr. H. H. Cla>-ton for America, 



NO. 



2814, VOL. I 12] 



