http://u.nu/755f4

Battening Down the Hatches: Stormy Weather

http://u.nu/855f4

On January 22, 1986, television weather forecasters in the northeastern United States took telephone calls from a worried geophysicist at the Lamont-Doherry Geological Observatory of Columbia University. He told them there a near certainty of floods or severe snowstorms in the next six days. The weathermen replied that the forecasts revealed nothing unusual and turned down the scientist’s request that they mention his prediction as a footnote to theirs.

http://u.nu/575f4

Three days later the storm broke, and it lasted more than 72 hours. Four inches of rain drenched the coastal region between Boston and Washington, D.C., and 40 inches of snow fell inland.

Fluke Coincidence?

http://u.nu/227f4

The man who had predicted the storm was Goesta Wollin. Since the early 1970’s he has been convinced that the earth’s magnetism affects climate.

http://u.nu/675f4

In 1970 Wollin and a colleague, David Ericson, began to study climatic changes that have taken place since the last ice age, 11,000 years ago. By chance, the same week they finished plotting their temperature curves, an article published in Science outlined the changes in the earth’s magnetic field over the identical span of time.

http://u.nu/637f4

As Wollin studied the graph that accompanied the article, he thought it bore a tantalizing resemblance to his own. The next day, he suddenly saw the connection. The curves on his graph and those on the one in Science were mirror images of each other. Where one fell, the other rose, and vice versa. This meant that when the magnetic field was weak, the climate warmed up (the temperature curve rose). When magnetism increased, the climate cooled (the temperature curve fell).

http://u.nu/985f4

But, as Wollin well knew, the history of science is filled with such fluke coincidences. He needed more evidence from different times and places.

http://u.nu/647f4

Once again chance intervened. Wollin met William Ryan, a research student who had been studying magnetism in seabed sediments laid down in the Caribbean over the past 700,000 years. Ironically, Wollin and Ericson had based their climatic studies on samples from the same area.

http://u.nu/395f4

Ryan had found evidence of five short-lived magnetic reveals, when the earth’s north and south magnetic poles had changed places. After four months of intensive work, the three men could demonstrate that a strong long-term link did indeed between the earth’s magnetic field and the climate – and not just in the Caribbean but in the Pacific and Mediterranean too.

http://u.nu/757f4

However, the scientific response to Wollin’s theory has been mixed. Climatologists have, on the whole, supported it, while geophysicists point out that Wollin has never been able to show exactly how magnetism and climate are linked.

http://u.nu/9a5f4

Wollin suggests that the answer lies in the sun’s magnetic field, which directly affects that of earth, or in changes in the solar winds that carry charged particles from the sun past the earth. But other scientists point out that although a weak magnetic held on earth would allow more radiation from space to penetrate to the ground, it would not be enough to account for the warming effect.

http://u.nu/367f4

Wollin set out to provide more evidence. He reasoned that if long-term changes in the magnetic field can produce long-term changes in the climate, the same might be true over a shorter period. Wollin needed to analyze data on violent storms that had not been predicted. If such events could be linked to equally violent changes in the magnetic field, his theory would be greatly strengthened.

http://u.nu/5b5f4

After looking through the records, Wollin found an unpredicted blizzard that had dropped a foot of snow on New York City on February 7, 1967. The magnetic record indicated that after a long period of calm there had been an abrupt dip in the field strength 2 ½ days prior to the blizzard.

http://u.nu/967f4

He also examined two other storms that had occurred in 1983. Neither had been anticipated. In both cases, dips had been recorded in the magnetic field cases, dips had been recorded in the magnetic field precisely 2 ½ days earlier. But Wollin still could not explain how the events were linked.

Forearmed is Forewarned

Since all of Wollin’s work to that point could be attacked as hindsight, it was time to make an accurate prediction based on his theory. He asked a friend. At Travis, at the Fredericksburg Magnetic Observatory in Corbin, Virginia, to keep an eye on the recorders and alert him when they started to behave erratically. The call came on January 22, 1985, the date Wollin telephoned to forecasters.

http://u.nu/477f4

At last the weathermen are beginning to admit that Wollin may have a point, and scientists are willing to investigate the phenomena he has so painstakingly unearthed. If the investigation bears fruit, then weather forecasters and the millions who rely on them may, for the first time, be able to anticipate and prepare for “freakish” storms.