Abstract
IN a paper just published by the Royal Society1 attention is directed to a peculiarity in the seasonal variation of temperature in the British Isles disclosed by the resolution into harmonic components of the curves of day to day variation derived from the 25-year means of the 24-hourly readings at Kew, Falmouth, Aberdeen and Valencia. The peculiarity in question is the second harmonic component which is represented by a curve with two maxima and two minima in the year. In the 25-year curves for each of the observatories the maxima of the second components ccme within four days on either side of January 31 and August 1 respectively, and the minima are in the first week of May and November. They represent a temperature effect which exaggerates the height and shortens by nearly two weeks the duration of the summer portion of the compound curve; it also moderates the depth and lengthens by an equal amount the duration of the winter portion. The effect has a range of nearly 3° F. at Kew in the 25-year mean curve, out of a whole range of 24° F. Its magnitude at the other stations is approximately the same fraction of the whole range at those stations. It is much larger in curves for single years at Kew, but the epoch varies somewhat. It is called meteorological, as distinguished from planetary, because in the mean curves for the Continental stations Vienna and Agra it is quite different either in magnitude, or epoch, or both.
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Some Seasonal Variations in the British Isles . Nature 65, 68–69 (1901). https://doi.org/10.1038/065068a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/065068a0