Popular Science Monthly/Volume 22/December 1882/The Spectroscope and the Weather
| THE SPECTROSCOPE AND THE WEATHER. |
By C. PIAZZI SMYTH,
ASTRONOMER ROYAL FOR SCOTLAND.
WHAT may be done with the spectroscope in the matter of weather is, for the present at least, confined almost entirely to the question of rain—as, Will it rain, or will it not; and, if it will, heavily or lightly? The manner in which the spectroscope accomplishes this useful part is by its capacity for showing whether there is more or less than the usual quantity of watery vapor permeating the otherwise dry gases in the upper parts of the atmosphere, this watery vapor not being by any means the visible clouds themselves, but the invisible water-gas out of which they have to be formed, and by means of which, when over-abundant, they obtain their privilege for enacting rain-fall. So that never were wiser words uttered and more terse philosophy than those which are to be found in the ancient hook of Job, wherein, of the wondrously "balanced clouds" high up in mid-air, it is said, "They pour down rain according to the vapor thereof."
More or less of this water-vapor is always in the air, even on the very clearest days, and a happy thing for men that it is so; for, as Dr. Tyndall and others have well shown, it moderates the excesses of hot solar radiation by day and cold radiation of the sky at night, and is more abundant in the hotter than in the colder parts of the earth. Wherefore, according largely to its temperature for the time being, the air—otherwise consisting almost entirely of nitrogen and oxygen—can sustain, and does assimilate, as it were, a specified amount of this watery vapor, invisibly to the naked eye, the microscope, or the telescope; but not so to the instrument of recent times, the spectroscope. And if the air vertically above any one place becomes presently charged with more than its usual dose of such transparent watery vapor (as it easily may, by various modes and processes of nature), the spectroscope shows that fact immediately, even while the sky is still blue; clouds soon after form, or thicken if already formed, and rain presently begins to descend.
But how does the spectroscope show to the eye what is declared to be invisible in all ordinary optical instruments? It is partly by its power of discriminating the differently colored rays of which white light is made up, and partly by the quality impressed on the molecules of water at their primeval creation, but only recently discovered, of stopping out certain of those rays so discriminated and placed in a rainbow-colored order by the prism and slit of the spectroscope, but transmitting others freely. Hence it is that, on looking at the light of the sky through any properly adjusted spectroscope, we see, besides the Newtonian series of colors from red to violet, and besides all the thin, dark Fraunhofer, or solar originated lines, of which it is not my object now to speak, we see, I say, in one very definite part—viz., between the orange and yellow of that row of colors, or "spectrum," as it is called—a dark, hazy band stretching across it. That is the chief band of watery vapor; and to see it very dark, even black, do not look at a dark part of the sky or at black clouds therein, but look, rather, where the sky is brightest, fullest of light to the naked eye, and where you can see through the greatest length of such well-illumined air, at a low, rather than high, angle of altitude, and either in warm weather, or, above all, just before a heavy rain-fall, when there is and must be an extra supply of watery vapor in the atmosphere. Any extreme darkness, therefore, seen in that water-vapor band beyond what is usual for the season of the year and the latitude of the place is an indication of rain-material accumulating abnormally; while, on the other hand, any notable deficiency in the darkness of it, other circumstances being the same, gives probability of dry weather, or absence of rain for very want of material to make it; and the band has, therefore, been called, shortly, "the rain-band." Thus, also, "rain band spectroscopes" have been specially constructed by several most expert opticians in size so small as to be carriable in the waistcoat pocket, but so powerful and true that a glance of two seconds' duration through one of them suffices to tell an experienced observer the general condition of the whole atmosphere. Especially, too, of the upper parts of it, where any changes—as they take place there almost invariably earlier than below—enable such an observer to favor his friends around him with a prevision of what they are likely soon to experience.
As an example of what may be done, and done easily, after a certain amount of experience and understanding of the subject has been acquired, I append, from a lady's meteorological journal, her notes of the mean temperature of the air and the intensity of the rain-band for each of the first fifteen days of the present month, and in a final column have entered the amount of rain-fall measured at the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, on each of those days. The darker the rain band the larger is the figure set down for it, and it will be seen pretty plainly, on running the eye down that column and the next one, that with an intensity of either or 1 no rain follows, or, we might almost say, can follow; but with an intensity of 2 rain-fall begins, and with 3 it may be very heavy. All these rain-band notes have been made with a spectroscope no larger than one's little finger, purchased some six years ago, and taken on many voyages and travels since then:
| DATE, September, 1882. | Mean temperature of the air. | Rain-band intensity. | Depth of rain measured in gauge at Royal Observatory, Edinburgh. |
| Deg. Fahr. | Inch. | ||
| Friday, 1 | 57·1 | 3 | ·044 |
| Saturday, 2 | 59·2 | 2 | ·353 |
| Sunday, 3 | 58·6 | 2 | ·015 |
| Monday, 4 | 54·4 | 0 | 0 |
| Tuesday, 5 | 55·7 | 1 | 0 |
| Wednesday, 6 | 55·2 | 0 | 0 |
| Thursday, 7 | 53·8 | 1 | 0 |
| Friday, 8 | 59·4 | 0 | 0 |
| Saturday, 9 | 54·0 | 1 | 0 |
| Sunday, 10 | 57·0 | 1 | 0 |
| Monday, 11 | 52·2 | 1 | ·040 |
| Tuesday, 12 | 48·6 | 0 | 0 |
| Wednesday, 13 | 52·8 | 1 | 0 |
| Thursday, 14 | 49·5 | 3 | ·62 |
| Friday, 15 | 56·2 | 2 | ·570 |
But, if so much can be done by so small a spectroscope, the question may be well asked whether more still might not be accomplished with a bigger and more powerful one, especially seeing that the dispersive powers of both chemical and astronomical spectroscopes have in late years been increased to a most astonishing extent. The question is important, and somewhat new as well. I propose, therefore, to devote the remainder of my space to its answer, rather than to the practical rules for using the smaller instruments, especially, too, as they have been already introduced to the public, both by my friend Mr. Rand Capron, in his pamphlet "A Plea for the Rain-band," and by myself, in the fourteenth volume of the "Edinburgh Astronomical Observations"-also in the "Journal of the Scottish Meteorological Society," and in the September number of the "Astronomical Register for 1877."
The greater part of higher power spectroscopes are not suitable to rain-band work, for their fields are usually too dark. But having recently built up for myself a large-sized variety of the instrument, possessing perhaps the greatest combination of power with transparency yet attained, and having it always mounted in an upper chamber looking out at an altitude of about 5° over the northwestern horizon (or most suitably for rain-band work), I will try to describe shortly its action therein.
The classical "rain-band," which in the little instrument is merely a very narrow fringe to an almost infinitely thin black line, is so magnified laterally in the larger instrument as to fill the whole breadth of the field. The thin black line before spoken of is now not only split into two, but these are both strong, thick, sharply defined lines, separated from each other by six or seven times the breadth of either. These are the celebrated solar D-lines, D1 and D2, arising from the sodium metalloid burning or incandescent in the sun. They are, therefore, perfectly uninfluenced by changes of the terrestrial atmosphere, hot or cold, wet or dry, and are, therefore, invaluable as references for degree of visibility of the water-vapor lines and bands which rise or fall in intensity precisely with those changes. There are several of these earthly water-vapor lines and bands in and between and about the D-lines themselves; then a long breadth of band toward the red side of D1; then a pair of lines not so widely apart as the D-lines, but sometimes just as sharp and black; then two or three fainter bands; then a grand triple, of which the nearer line sometimes attains greater blackness than either D-line; then beyond that three distinct, equal-spaced, isolated bands; and, farther away toward the red, a stretch of faint haze and haze-bands.
All these go to make up the one thin rain-band of the little spectroscopes; and I fortunately had, through the month of August and the early days of September, occupied myself each morning in noting the greater or less intensity of each and all these water-vapor lines and bands in terms of the two solar constants D1 and D2; and every such morning there was an abundance of details to see, to recognize, and to measure. But on the morning of Monday, September 4th, when the little instrument had truly enough marked on its very small scale, I almost started at finding in the large instrument every member of its long rain-band group, unless it were a vanishing trace of one or two of the strongest, utterly gone; while the two D-lines were in their accustomed strength, but far greater clearness, for now they were all alone in the field save the ultra-thin solar nickel line between them and one or two others, equally thin and solar on their blue side. The stages of perceptible shade of water-vapor lines which had thus been swept away, between their this day's invisibility, and their tremendous strength no longer before than the previous Friday, might have been expressed by a scale not divided into three parts only, but into thirty; and implied such a very unusual amount of absence of water-vapor, that I not only felt sure of no rain falling either next day, or perhaps for several days after, but that the weather must also be coming on colder as well. Therefore it was that I took the step of instantly writing as I did to a local paper, promising the perplexed farmers dry weather at last, though probably sharp and cold, to get in their crops.
And how was that expectation fulfilled? Various meteorologists in different parts of the country have already declared themselves well satisfied with it. But I would now beg further attention to the little daily register already quoted, showing that from and including that day, Monday, September 4th, up to and including the next Saturday, not a drop of rain fell at the observatory. Between the following Sunday and Monday, a drizzle, but only amounting to 0·04 inch, occurred, and after that there were three more days equally dry with the preceding ones. But on Thursday, the 14th, the rain-band reappeared in both spectroscopes in all its force; rain began to fall the same day, and next day's measure at the observatory amounted to more than half an inch. Wherefore it is to be hoped that the farmers had busied themselves effectively while the dry weather lasted, for the return of these spectral lines of watery vapor showed that their autumn opportunity was then gone by.—London Times.
