Harqua and Montezuma

They Will Answer to the Cry " Watchman, What of the Sun? " A decline of between three and four per cent in the heat radiated by the sun to the earth during the last 15 months startled the weather sharps who heard it announced by Dr. Charles Greeley Abbot, home secretary of the National Academy of Sciences, in a paper before the annual meeting of that body in Washington. He characterized the drop as " extraordinary " and as the most outstanding change which has been observed since measurements of the sun's heat began in 1905. During the intervening time the sun's heat was practically normal, and the year 1921, up to November, was the warmest on record for the last 50 years.

While Dr. Abbott mentioned the coincidence of the sun's " chill " with the recent stormy winter and late spring, he drew no conclusions as to their causal connection. The cooling is due entirely to causes outside the earth's atmosphere, and presumably to changes on the sun's surface. Alterations of the sun's " spots"--apparently dark bodies of gas thousands of miles high and wide, and probably cooler than the rest of the " photosphere "have been observed for years to have some connection with terrestrial weather. Meteorologists are now suggesting a possible damagingly cold summer and severe winter, like those of the disastrous year of 1816, when frosts occurred in June and July. But Prof. Charles F. Marvin, chief of the Weather Bureau, and Dr. Abbot himself refuse to become excited, and will make no predictions. Nothing like general and prolonged coolness is to be expected, for the earth's atmospheric envelope is too complicated. That the coolness reflects any change in the absolute energy of the sun is most improbable, for while the great source of our heat and light is presumed to be slowly losing its energy over a period of millions of years, this effect has not been perceptible within historic times. It has been pointed out that the past winter has been an unusually mild one in Great Britain, and in Australia the season has been exceptionally hot and dry.

Dr. Abbot, who has been internationally eminent as an astrophysicist and director of the Smithsonian Institution for many years, will continue to observe the sun's behavior until July, 1925, at least. Stations of the Institution under his direction on Mount Harqua, Arizona (5,800 feet above sea level), and Mount Montezuma, Chile (9,500 feet), both in desert regions above the dust and dirt of the world, are making daily observations unhampered by rain or clouds. The series of measurements of the sun's heat was begun by the late Samuel Pierpont Langley. The Weather Bureau is cooperating closely and giving careful attention to the findings.