On the Change of Climate in Europe

Appendix.

On the change of climate in Europe.

The striking mildness of the recently concluded winter and of several preceding consecutive winters has already drawn the attention of natural philosophers. A Mr. Fairbairn now shares his views on the subject in an English journal, the essential substance of which consists of the following:

The rapid change in the climate of Great Britain is to be attributed to the clearing of the forests in Canada and the northern states of the American Union. The increasing prevalence and warmth of the westerly winds blowing across the North Atlantic Ocean have their origin in the vast clearings which the axe makes year in, year out in the forests there. The north-westerly winds previously passed over boundless tracts of woodland and were never mitigated by the warmth otherwise radiated by the ground, as the soil was sheltered from the sun's rays even during the summer months. Although the land lies at the same latitude as the countries north of the Mediterranean Sea, the winters in America, prior to the forests being cleared so substantially as in the past quarter of a century, were of a severity unknown in Europe, even in lands situated 12 degrees farther north. Since the beginning of this century the change has been extraordinary; the snow, which once blocked the roads for months on end, has fallen in far lesser amounts, and thaw and rain now frequently occur in parts of Canada where no interruption of winter's severity was previously known. The Saint Lawrence River freezes over later each year, and navigation opens earlier every spring. Cotton, maize, mulberry trees, and grapevines are now cultivated in districts where 25 years ago such produce could not have endured the average annual temperature. The breaking away of ice in the polar seas and the appearance of icebergs in the Atlantic Ocean, which has occurred very frequently over the past 25 years, is likewise to be attributed to the accumulation of heat in Canada and the surrounding regions.

However rapid these changes in the climate of the American continent may be, with the ongoing clearing of forests, the growing cultivation of the soil, and the rising population, it will continue to grow milder with every year, and before a century elapses, the Saint Lawrence River will no longer freeze. One might perhaps ask how the climate in Canada could exert so great an influence upon the climate of distant England. To this it may be replied that the north-west wind of Canada reaches across the Atlantic Ocean and the entire American continent, often causing the thermometer in the city of Mexico to fall within an hour from 70° to 35° F. If the cold of these north-west winds makes itself felt during the winter in Mexico and even in the West Indies, the changes that have occurred at their source in the wilds of Canada must surely be noticed in all lands washed by the Atlantic Ocean. The heavy incursions of the sea on the western coast of Ireland are attributable to the increase of westerly winds, and the north-east trade wind has for the same reason been driven several degrees southward, so that no trade wind is now observed in the gulf between Florida and Mexico. Merchants and mariners have observed that on the western coasts of England and Scotland the west wind has become almost a trade wind, and without the aid of steam vessels towing ships out of harbour, commerce would often be interrupted for long intervals, resulting in great losses. As these same causes will persist for considerable time and thus entail the same consequences, with the continual felling of the Canadian forests, winter in the southern counties of England, where no mountains obstruct the west wind and chill it again, will cease almost entirely.

By contrast, a Mr. Schmitz, writing in the journal “Originalien”, seeks to explain this phenomenon through a decrease in the obliquity of the ecliptic. Drawing upon astronomical writings from the earliest eras to the present day, he compiles observations intended to show that the sun's divergence from the equator, that is, the angle of the ecliptic, is steadily diminishing. The consequence he foretells—assuming old Mother Earth endures to witness it—would be that the torrid zone would turn into a parched, scorched sand desert, the temperate zones into frigid ones, and the polar zones into solid, never-thawing fields of ice; in a word, that the earth would move ever closer to complete uninhabitable desolation.