460 REVIEWS

The dedication points out that the receipt of contributions from all over the world for this special number indicates the respect for the scientific work of the Institute and of Profs. Conrad and Ficker.

The volume includes 23 papers from authors in several European countries, the U.S.A. and India. The subjects dealt with include radiation, surface and upper-air climatology, bioclimatology, meteorological effects in disease, evaporation, climatic change, and glaciology.

Only a few papers can be mentioned individually. Albrecht and Goldschmidt each describe observations of total radiation from a cloudless sky and discuss formulae for the relation between the radiation and the altitude of the sun and with cloudiness. Flohn discusses the mechanism of the occurrence of westerly winds near the Equator and Reinhard the upper wind observations made by radar on the continental coast of the English channel during the war. Ramdas gives a valuable survey of the investigations at Poona into the meteorology of the lowest few feet of the atmosphere; this paper contains much information on temperature, humidity and wind gradients, on the heat loss from the surface by convection and on the temperature and humidity in various kinds of crop. Ekhart provides a comprehensive climatological study of 50 years' wind observations at Vienna.

Thornthwaite describes a method of measuring evapotranspiration and some calculations of the potential evapotranspiration for different climates, and Lauscher the worldwide distribution of Hill's cooling power. In one of the papers on meteorological effects in disease Berg produces statistics to show that occurrences of lung embolism are not associated with passage of fronts. Prohaska produces evidence that the Antarctic has not experienced any increase of mean temperature such as has occurred over much of the Arctic since the early years of the present century and Winter examines the secular variations of the summer temperature of Vienna with 25-year overlapping means compiled from the 175-year-long series of observations; the values, dated from the last year of the period, were high in the first thirty and last thirty years of the 19th century, fell after 1900 and are now rising again.

G.A.B.

Archiu fur Meteorologie, Geophysik und Bioklimatologie, Serie A, Bd. IV. Vienna (Springer), 1951. Pp. 448; Figs., tables. DM.65.

Volume IV, Series A, which is also a special number, contains 31 papers, all of them substantial ones, in its 448 pages. Their subjects include tropical cyclones, theory of water-spouts and tornadoes, gravity waves in the atmosphere, lag in radiosondes, solar effects on the frequency of formation of depressions, dynamics of jet streams, formation of ice crystals in the atmosphere, electric conductivity of the air near the ground, electric currents in the ionosphere, changes in ozone amount associated with sudden ionospheric disturbances, methods of statistical and harmonic analysis in geophysics, atmospheric thermodynamics, turbulence, and seismology.

Again only a few papers can be mentioned individually. H. Koschrnieder reviews theories of formation of dust devils and tornadoes and has a detailed analysis with good photographs of a dust devil in process of formation; he regards dust devils as whirls set off as air flows past the edges of obstacles and so accounts for the high proportion of anticyclonically rotating ones and calculates some pressure falls for tornadoes on the basis that the pressure in the centre is at most the same as at the cloud base. W. Bleeker and A. Delver give a new theory of the formation of tornadoes on the basis of the temperature differences between the areas with heavy rain and those without. C.-G. Rossby, in a mathematical paper, explains the formation of jet streams on the basis that stratified air currents assume that distribution of wind velocity with height which corresponds to a minimum value of rate of momentum transfer in the vertical. D. P. McIntyre outlines the main principles of the Chicago school of meteorology and of its leading spirit C.-G. Rossby as devotion to study of the hydrodynamics of the field of flow rather than of pressure. There are two British contributors: Prof. S. Chapman and Dr. R. S. Scorer. Prof. Chapman introduces a new term into ionospheric physics with his equatorial electro-jet ' which is an intense electric current flowing eastwards over the sunlit equator invoked to explain the large diurnal range in the horizontal magnetic force at Huancayo and other equatorial observatories. Dr. Scorer outlines his mathematical theory of gravity-waves in the atmosphere and discusses in detail the circumstances in which the waves can be formed.

May we add our congratulations to the Austrian Central Institute and our best wishes for its second century ?

G.A.B.

Berichte des Deutschen Wetterdienstes in der U.S. Zone, No. 42,1952. Pp. 463; Figs., tables, charts. DM.50.

This number of the series of Berichte of the meteorological service of the U.S. Zone of Germany is dedicated to the well-known climatologist Prof. Dr. K. Knoch on his 70th birthday. The volume contains 107 papers, many very short, in its 463 pages.

The subject range is wide; a rough classification list is clirnatolopy, bioclimatology, micrometeorology, phenology, agricultural meteorology, radiation, instruments, meteorological factors in health and disease, upper air climatology, meteorological organization.

Taking a few papers almost at random: Dr. K. Keil gives an interesting article on the development of the Library of the US. Zone service from its first foundation in 1886 as the Library of the Prussian State

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Meteorological service to its recovery after the late war, M. Manig has an article with good charts on the temperature extremes of western Germany, W. Caspar gives the degree-day sums of temperature in Germany for heating purposes and dates of first and last ' heating ' days with good charts, and K. H. Richter discusses the diurnal variation of upper winds over Langenhagen on the basis of a year's radar wind observations.

G.A.B.

Me'te'orologie ge'ne'rale, Tome I. Structure verticale de l'atmosphere. L'atmosphere et les phtnomhnes de rayonnement. By J. Roulleau and R. Trochon. Paris (Gauthier-Villars), 1952. Pp. 149,46 Figs. N.p.

This book is without preface, introduction, or apologia, a fact which will no doubt be welcomed by the ordinary reader but which is calculated to make the reviewer work. From the title page it appears to be the first volume of a series of monographs to be published under the authority of the Director of the French Meteorological Service and its style suggests that its main purpose is the instruction of meteorologists within that service.

The first three chapters (80 pages) are concerned with temperature, pressure, and composition of the atmosphere, and in particular with their variation in time at all heights. The treatment is mainly descriptive, and undue emphasis is not placed on surface observations. The last two chapters (50 pages) deal with solar, terrestrial, and atmospheric radiation and associated temperature changes. They are sound but rather uncritical; a knowledge of physics up to about ordinary degree standard is assumed.

The book is hardly likely to displace any in common use in this country, but it will be of interest to anyone concerned in the teaching of meteorology in view of the original and notably concise presentation of the facts in the earlier chapters.

G.D.R.

Soil physical conditions and plant growth. Pp. xv, 491; 97 Figs., 65 tables.

This monograph, prepared under the auspices of the American Society of Agronomy, has been written by nine authors in five main sections: soil as a physical system; mechanical impedance and plant growth; soil water and plant growth; soil aeration and plant growth; soil temperature and plant growth. The book will serve its intended readers admirably, but its meteorological content is so slight as to be negligible. The excellent sections on soil water and temperature will, however, provide useful background information for those meteorologists who are interested in the effect of weather on plants.

Edited by Byron T. Shaw. New York (Academic Press), 1952. 70s. 9d.

H.L.P.

A!timeter errors near mountains. By R. S. Scorer. Unpublished MS. Pp. 32; Figs., tables.

Our knowledge about airflow over mountains is very limited and before much progress can be made in this subject a good deal of practical data in the field must be obtained. Observations have been made by Forchtgott in Czechoslovakia and also by the Sierra Wave Project in California but, so far, little has been done in this country. This paper contains an account of a series of experiments made in North Wales during Sept. 1951 by members of Imperial College and various Gliding Clubs to measure the pressure field upwind of mountains. The results were inconclusive, mainly owing to instrumental failings, but no doubt the experience gained will prove invaluable to Dr. Scorer and his colleagues in their efforts to obtain further data in subsequent work.

The gliders were equipped with sensitive altimeters to measure pressure and their true heights were determined simultaneously from double-theodolite observations from the ground. In addition, the pilots measured temperatures at various levels throughout the flights. The difference between the reading of static pressure and the hydrostatic pressure, calculated upwards from the surface using the temperature and height readings, is the ' altimeter error.' In this work it was only about 1 mb but, with stronger winds, up to 10 mb would be anticipated from theoretical considerations. If the distribution of this altimeter error upwind of the mountain could have been measured, a useful check would also have been obtained on Dr. Scorer's application of perturbation theory to this problem and the validity of the assumptions it contains. Unfor- tunately it was not known by the experimenters, before the measurements were made, that the standard sensitive altimeter possesses a large lag and, as the s id ing rates of the gliders were not measured, the resultant uncertainty of the pressure readings invalidated the measurements. One wonders whether a slow-flying aircraft keeping constant indicated height and being observed by kinetheodolites would not be a better experimental tool in the future.

Apart from a review of the theory of airflow over hills and a discussion of the possibility of model experi- ments in wind tunnels this paper is therefore only of limited interest. Indeed from its layout it would appear that it is intended primarily for interested members of Imperial College and the Gliding Clubs, The con- clusions in particular might be better arranged.

R. J.M.