ANTARCTIC INFLUENCES ON AUSTRALIAN CLIMATE 



293 



pressure waves mentioned above modify the usual pressure conditions. 

 When they intensify these normal conditions a furious blizzard re- 

 sults, when they counteract them calms or northerly winds result at 

 Cape Evans. 



No adequate explanation is available as to these pressure waves 

 or surges. They seem to rise in the hypothetical lower portion of East 

 Antarctica and radiate out- 

 wards therefrom, but Dr. 

 Simpson leaves their fur- 

 ther elucidation to the 

 future. He thinks they are 

 of permanent importance 

 all through Antarctica. 

 They largely account for 

 the phenomena at the 

 Gaussberg. They are domi- 

 nant at Cape Adare, but 

 the normal west-to-east cy- 

 clone conditions are super- 

 posed on them at this latter 

 locality. Traces of these 

 pressure waves are appar- 

 ent as far north as Kergue- 

 len, where many pressure 

 changes without corres- 

 ponding changes in the 

 wind direction are appar- 

 ent. There is, however, little if any evidence of them in New Zealand 

 or in the south of Australia, where the weather is entirely dominated 

 by traveling cyclones and anticyclones. 



Fig. 7 — Pressure waves moving over Antarctica to the 

 nortiiwest. (After G. C. Simpson, ibid., p. 216.) 



Australia and Antarctica 



METEOROLOGICAL CORRELATIONS 



A consideration of the foregoing data makes it appear probable 

 that there is no very close connection between minor weather condi- 

 tions in the Antarctic and in Australia (or other similarly situated 

 inhabited lands). However, this does not destroy our interest in cer- 

 tain larger meteorological correlations. The writer in 1914 indicated 

 some of these in an earlier publication in the following words :^ 



"The isobars apparently exhibit a tendency to lie parallel to the 

 great Antarctic mountains bounding the Ice Plateau. On many 



"Antarctica, Tlie Britisii Sector, Ch. i6 in: Oxford Survey of the British Empire, edited by 

 A. J. Herbertson and O. J. R. Howarth, Vol. 5, Oxford, 1914, pp. 537-538. 



