NO. 4 TEMPERATURE VARIATIONS IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC 185 



SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE 



Recently we have had opportunity to consult Huntington's treatise 

 entitled "The Solar Hypothesis of Climatic Changes" (1914-a), 

 which contains the very valuable investigation by Prof. Kullmer 

 on variations in the storm tracks in America and the considerations 

 based thereon. Like Prof. Bigelow previously, Prof. Kullmer found 

 that the great northerly storm track in the United States is dis- 

 placed further to the north at maximum of sun spots, while the 

 less important southern storm track is displaced further south. 

 He finds also that the frequency of storms in the United States 

 is greatest at sun spot maximum and least at sun spot minimum. 

 In consequence of the motion of these storm tracks there is a bow- 

 shaped region in the middle states in which the storminess varies 

 alternately. That is, it is greatest at sun spot minimum and least 

 at sun spot maximum. In comparisons with the variations in the 

 storm tracks and the frequency of storms Kullmer and Hunting- 

 ton have used only the sun spots and no other sign of the varia- 

 tions of the solar activity, such as the prominences and the varia- 

 tions in the magnetic elements on the earth. They have therefore 

 not noticed that the numbers which they give for the storminess and 

 which agree somewhat badly with the variations in the sun spots, 

 that these numbers, I say, give distinct indications of shorter periods 

 than the eleven-year period which they have alone considered. 



The tables of storminess published by Huntington (1914-a, p. 502) 

 give within the sun spot period three shorter well-marked periods 

 which he has not called attention to, for he believes that the apparent 

 irregularity and disagreement with the numbers of the sun spots is 

 due to imperfect observations. The curves given in his figure 9 

 show this. But the disagreement between the curve of storminess 

 and the curve of sun spots causes him so great difficulty that he 

 explains that the problem must be provisionally unelucidated. He 

 has not noted that these storm curves of Kullmer have the same 

 short period of about three years which Bigelow found in the varia- 

 tions of the storm tracks and in the variations of air pressure and 

 temperature and which the two Lockyers and others have noted 

 in the air pressure. 



In figure 64 we give Kullmer's curve (St, according to Hunting- 

 ton) for the storminess in the northern United States, together with 

 curves for the prominences (P according to the observations in 

 Rome and Catania), for the disturbances of the magnetic element 

 at Potsdam (M) and for the sun spots (S). The storm curve shows 



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