CITIES WARMER THAN THE COUNTRY.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 2388, 29 October 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

CITIES WARMER THAN THE COUNTRY.

Those who happen to live at a little distance from the heart of the city must frequently have noticed a lack of accord between reading of their own thermometers, and the published observations of the Signal Service observers of their locality. The reasqq of the discord plain, namely, the perturbing action of the heat which the city emits, and however gratifying it may be to the outsider to find himself superior to the Government observers, it is very little credit to the Weather Bureau that this particular source of error was not long since recognised and avoided. The remarks of Prof. Whitney on this subject, as applied to the observations made at London are pertinent and convicting. He says:—

“It is a well-known fact that cities are considerably warmer than the more thinly inhabited country, otherwise under similar climatic conditions. Statistics should prove this to be true; and there could he no doubt that such would be the effect of an immediate aggregation qf population withiq a limited apace, even if there were nq statistics bearing on this question. Many millions of tons of coal burned in and about big cities during every year, and the whole mass of brick of which the city is built is heated during the entire winter, and more or less in the summer, many degrees above the natural temperature. There can be no question that conditions such as are here indicated vitiate all observations made in or near large cities, with a view to thodetenniuation of any possible secular variation of the temperature.