IS WORLD WARMING UP? 01 Oct 1932. “Going through records for 60 years. Mr. Mares found that Sydney has become very slightly warmer. For the 30 years, 1901-1930, the average temperature for the 12 months was half a degree higher than for the years from 1871 to 1900.”
IS WORLD WARMING UP? (1932, October 1). The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, NSW : 1931 – 1954), p. 4. Retrieved June 3, 2020, from https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/247316844?searchTerm=world%20heating%20up&searchLimits=#
PHYSICISTS and others have drawn gloomy pictures of the earth growing colder and colder as the sun dissipates its heat till it becomes a dead world frozen if there is water left to freeze.
It is true that they consolingly add that this will take millions, on millions of years.
Then we have plain, blunt, men saying that the, earth is a self-warmer. Turning over the question during a voyage to New Guinea,. Mr. Prowse M.H.R., pointed out that the sun’s heat was said to come through the space between us and the sun. Yet the nearer we go to the sun the colder it grows as Professor Piccard, who has been nearer than any one else, has just told us.
Moreover, many scientists hold that space is intensely cold. How can warmth reach us through this ice-box of the universe.
Direct evidence covers a very short period, but it suggests that the earth may be growing warmer.
At the recent meeting of the British Association.Mr. E. G. Bilham analysed very carefully the re-
cords at. York over a period of 60 years.
For the 30 years, 1901-1930, the average temperature for the 12 months was half a degree higher than for the years from 1871 to 1900.
The increase was one degree for the winter.
The summer alone showed a decline, and that was only a tenth of a degree.
Curiously enough there was, on the average, three per cent less sunshine. The winter sunshine showed a decrease of 6 per cent.
Only the autumn showed more sunshine. In that season the hours rose by 9 per cent., but the rise in temperature was only .3 of a degree.
These York observations are confirmed by the records at Sydney, almost at the antipodes of York.
Going through records for 60 years. Mr. Mares found that Sydney has become very slightly warmer.
He thinks that the period is too short and the change too small to draw any general conclusion. Yet the experience of two places so far apart as York and Sydney agrees.
The evidence of the remote past is no guide to the future.
Antarctica was once a land of trees and flowers, while regions near the Equator show traces
of cold spells.
These things prove that climates change but it is impossible to say whether in the past million years or so the earth as a whole has grown colder or warmer.
Robert Kronfeld, the glider expert, is going to India to study hot air.
He will find plenty of hot air here, too, if he comes on while the State Parliament is in session. And some of the members are experts at gliding away from the point.