Abstract
FROM the third annual Report of the Forest Meteora-logical Stations of Germany, being the Report for 1877, we learn that this system of inquiry into the influence of forests on weather and climate now includes fourteen stations scattered over a region extending over 7° of latitude and 5° of longitude, the stations being at heights ranging from 10 to 3,051 feet above the sea. The instruments and observations have been planned on satisfactory and comprehensive principles, and in a few years results eminently ad rein may be looked for. In the meantime the thermometric observations point to highly important results. Each station has three sets of thermometers for air temperature, similarly protected—one set in the wood, the second set high up in the crown of a tree, and the third set in an open space outside the wood, while earth thermometers are placed both in the open and in the wood, on the surface of the ground, and at depths of 6, 12, 24, 36, and 48 inches. The results show in every case a lower air temperature inside the wood as compared with the open country outside,—the mean difference amounting to 1°′3. As regards the temperature of the surface of the ground, the mean deficiency in the wood shaded by the trees is 2°′5, an amount which gradually diminishes with the depth to 2°′0 at 48 inches, the lowest depth observed. It would be a problem of great interest to ascertain how deep this cooling of the earth's surface extends when it is screened by trees from solar and terrestrial radiation. What are called the “true means” of atmospheric pressure are calculated from the observations at 8 A.M. and 2 P.M., the formula being
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Meteorological Notes. Nature 19, 419–420 (1879). https://doi.org/10.1038/019419a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/019419a0