OUR MILD WINTERS AND THEIR CAUSE.

Taihape Daily Times, 24 May 1918, Page 6

OUR MILD WINTERS AND THEIR CAUSE.

(To the Editor) Those who have resided in the district this last twenty or more years will admit a considerable improvement in our winters lately, as comA. pared with formerly, when it was not ■ ■ uncommon to have snow as late as . November. Few, however, inquire as , to the cause of this improvement, the most feasible explanation is the the- , ory put forward by some astronomers , that our planet is by slow degrees tipping .on its axis in such a way as to

bring the poles in direct line with the sun’s rays. This theory is most acceptable to the ordinary person, as it fits in with what has occurred and what is happening at the present time. We know, for instance, during the ice age, or what the geologists call the glacial period, the whole of the northern hemisphere was covered with an ice sheet ,estimated to be a mile or more in thickness. All the shallow hasin of the North Sea was filled with it, and it overlapped all along the east coast of England as far down as Suffolk, while boulders and granite blocks, weighing, in many cases, many tons, were borne by land ice and stranded as close to London as Highgate. Then the ice gradually began to retreat northward and this process Is still going on and what applies In this instance to the northern hemisphere applies with equal force to the southern, hence our milder winters; "hence also incidentally, .our cooler Bummers, for the break-up of the ice which has been accumulating for centuries in the Polar regions sends It floating in ever-increasing quantities into warmer latitudes, thereby lowering the summer temperature. Ice will resist heat for a considerable time, but sooner or later it melts, and when once a thaw- sets in it is apt to be very rapid. To this fact was directly due the lamentable loss of the Titanic; ♦.he ice. broke, millions of tons of it, from Labrador and Greenland, early and abundantly, so that the bergs were in quantities in a latitude where they should not ordinarily have been at the time. Nor is this an isolated case; on the contrary it is the same everywhere. It is a mattef~of common knowledge that the old-fashioned English Christmas with its abundance of ice and snow is a thing of the past; we can hardly conceive nowadays the possibility of climatic conditions suen as would permit of a frost fair being held on the frozen Thames at London Bridge, as has been done in the memory of those living. The ice on the Neva now breaks up three weeks earlier than a generation ago. In Alberta and other parts of Northern Canada it has been found possible to grow wheat where within the memory of some residents there, was, practically speaking, snow and ice all the year round. Iceland now belies its name to a large extent, as, comparatively speaking, even in midwinter there is little ice. In the European Alps the glaciers are rapidly retreating, so that now valleys which were filled with ice thirty or forty years ago, are being cultivated. In conclusion it appears 1 after reading the bandwriting of cur planet, that we are in for a long period of more generally equable weather, warmer in winter amd slightly colder in summer. The latter, however, is merely temporary, being due solely to the melting of the Polar ice caps. "When that is gone, or nearly gone, t? e shall probably see r. return in this latitude of sub-tropical conditions. —I am, etc., W.J.H. McC. ~