Page:On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground.pdf/34

Rh reverse would be the case (at least to a latitude of 50° from the equator), if the carbonic acid diminished in amount. But in both these cases I incline to think that the secondary action (see p. ) due to the regress or the progress of the snow-covering would play the most important rôle. The theory demands also that, roughly speaking, the whole earth should have undergone about the same variations of temperature, so that according to it genial or glacial epochs must have occurred simultaneously on the whole earth. Because of the greater nebulosity of the Southern hemisphere, the variations must there have been a little less (about 15 per cent.) than in the Northern hemisphere. The ocean currents, too, must there, as at the present time, have effaced the differences in temperature at different latitudes to a greater extent than in the Northern hemisphere. This effect also results from the greater nebulosity in the arctic zones than in the neighbourhood of the equator.

There is now an important question which should be answered, namely: – Is it probable that such great variations in the quantity of carbonic acid as our theory requires have occurred in relatively short geological times? The answer to this question is given by Prof. Högbom. As his memoir on this question may not be accessible to most readers of these pages, I have summed up and translated his utterances which are of most importance to our subject : –

"Although it is not possible to obtain exact quantitative expressions tor the reactions in nature by which carbonic acid is developed or consumed, nevertheless there are some factors, of which one may get an approximately true estimate, and from which certain conclusions that throw light on the question may be drawn. In the first place, it seems to be of importance to compare the quantity of carbonic acid now present in the air with the quantities that are being transformed. If the former is insignificant in comparison with the latter, then the probability for variations is wholly other than in the opposite case.

"On the supposition that the mean quantity of carbonic acid in the air reaches 0.03 vol. per cent., this number represents 0.045 per cent. by weight, or 0.342 millim. partial pressure, or 0.466 gramme of carbonic acid for every cm.2 of the earth's surface. Reduced to carbon this quantity would give a layer of about 1 millim. thickness over the earth's surface. The quantity of carbon that is fixed in the living organic world can certainly not be estimated with the Phil. Mag. S. 5. Vol. 41. No. 251. April 1896.