NO. 4 TEMPERATURE VARIATIONS IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC 309 



radiation produce increased temperatures at some stations, but de- 

 creased temperature at others, and at some stations little tempera- 

 ture change at all. 



Hence it is necessary to treat the subject more in detail. Indi- 

 vidual stations must be studied by themselves. In order to aid those 

 who wish to undertake such investigations it seems worth while to 

 publish in extejuo the temperature departures found for the 47 sta- 

 tions employed in the Smithsonian publication of 1908. These were 

 collected from the Library of the United States Weather Bureau, 

 and much aid was furnished by the officials there, especially by Pro- 

 fessor Kimball and Professor Talman, in the selection and collection 

 of the data. 



We give below the temperature departures from normals as pub- 

 lished officially, or as computed by us from available data. The 

 latitudes, longitudes, altitudes, and normal temperatures of each sta- 

 tion are given at the head of each table. Monthly departures, com- 

 puted from all available data extend generally over the time interval 

 1875 to 1910. As we explained in Volume II of the Annals, after 

 departures from " mean " temperatures had been obtained for many 

 stations in Asia and Europe, difficulty in computing " mean " tem- 

 peratures was encountered in many instances. This led us at the time 

 to employ " maximum " temperatures for many stations, as being 

 more independent of changes in hours of observing. But we now 

 regret that we did not employ means of " maximum " and " mini- 

 mum " temperatures where " mean " temperatures were inconveni- 

 ent. Although this would have increased the work of taking depar- 

 tures, the function is one which is less dependent on cloudiness than 

 " maximum " temperatures, and more representative of temperature 

 conditions. The footnotes indicate the conditions as regards latitude, 

 longitude, and normals, whether north or south, east or west, 

 " mean " or " maximum," Centigrade or Fahrenheit. 



