Global warming in 1921.

Byline: Albert B. Southwick

COLUMN: ALBERT B. SOUTHWICK

The headline in The Telegram was intriguing: EARTH HEAT WAVE BAFFLES SAVANTS

The subhead was disturbing: "Temperature Far Above Normalcy For Nine Months While Drought Reigns and Volcanoes Rage"

The sub-sub head was downright alarming: "Earthquakes, typhoons, tidal waves and hurricanes throughout world during period of excess warmth start scientists wondering whether paroxysm of nature is cause - some blame sunspots - `lost' earthquake may be responsible."

That was October 3, 1921. The Telegram was running an Associated Press story from the Weather Bureau in Washington describing a "world-wide heat wave of unusual strength and intensity." That may have been responsible for recent "earthquakes, typhoons, tidal waves, cloudbursts, waterspouts, hailstorms, floods and hurricanes."

The Weather Bureau noted that the average daily temperature in New York City had been running 6.2 degrees above normal and that rainfall around the country was five inches below normal.

"The persistent higher temperature, to which a number of speculative explanations have been given, began in August, 1920, and for the succeeding 12 months there was an average monthly excess above normal of 7.2 degrees. March, 1921, an unusually warm spring month, had an excess average of 10.2 degrees."

Actually, steadily higher temperatures had been recorded for several years before 1920. Although the Weather Bureau declined to speculate on whether that temperature rise was responsible for the various earthquakes and volcanic eruptions of recent years, journalists had no such inhibitions. The Telegram story recounted the eruption of the Indonesia volcano Krakatoa, when "two-thirds of the island was blown away, 20,000 persons perished and a tidal wave propelled itself as far as the English Channel."

But whether those disasters could be linked "to some paroxysm of nature, such as volcanic action in some remote region of the earth or seismic upheaval in the depths of some unknown sea, or whether it is due to sunspots or some other cause, is problematical."

The seismologists and vulcanologists of that era were working in the dark in trying to link violent weather phenomena together. Not until the 1960s did scientists figure out the nature of the earth's crust - a thin (4 to 25 miles thick) shell that covers the inner molten mantle with tectonic "plates" that join together with long, deep cracks or faults at the edges. The slipping and grinding of these plates against each other sets off volcanic eruptions and earth tremors that can be violent and deadly, especially when they occur in the depths of the oceans.

Whether rising global temperatures can set off violent weather patterns is still a matter of great controversy. Also involved may be sunspots that send out bursts of gamma rays and other phenomena.

As in 1921 and for eons previously, our earth remains a molten ball spinning through space on a 584-million-mile annual journey around the sun. It is not a perfectly shaped globe; centrifugal force causes it to bulge slightly at the equator. And although its (relatively) thin crust is strong enough to support millions of tons of water over most of its surface, it, like a cracked eggshell, seeps periodically at the cracks, causing internal explosions, volcanic eruptions and violent tremors.

In short, it remains a mystery in many respects. Its temperature fluctuations over the millennia are as puzzling today as they were in 1921.

Albert B. Southwick's column appears regularly in the Telegram & Gazette.