The Daily Alaska empire Newspaper, March 31, 1940, Page 41

__PROGRESS AND DEVELOPMENT EDITION ALASKA BALLOONS PROBE STRATOSPHERE country ‘'tis of thee,” wutomobile static, co- ballgons and farmers’ e to do with the be difficult for many erstand. it's quite a the Juneau U Jureau of to explain to st what they have last September 1 two Kleinsasser the local ked and assembled a equipment and then pro- take the measure of the es above Juneau They Tell All 1s they can explain it. business is as fol- What “My electric eye! cables, hs r may axial un s why taff of fice joined maze cf uppe air, mi mply this radic-sonde low A n aloft instru- \sure temperature nd air pressure. Through lipment which it also car- reporting all these read- ent back to a recciving set t Weather Bureau office. Simple, isn't it? But there are cns you are naturally going to uch as “how does it at's it good for?” and do the farmers' daughters in? Then the process will found to have ramifications. Here are some of them The balloon is made lated with helium, in diameter when and swells to 15 the thin stratosphere carries mer m rad ries. sign: ing: m v N of measures it wo Pounds is encased in It has one littie yarries aloft overed paper box. tube to 1w ce5 centigrade, which we pretty cold), a simple rometer to measure pres- clothesline-rigged tandem of s attack e humidity, various mechani- sets which transform the ac- measuring devices into impulses and a radio which sends the to earth , remember, isn't at- e ground in any waj e balloon” entirely on own in the upper air. The whole instrument weighs only The whole instrument practically speaking, is lost ever) halloon is sent up. are launched from Federal Building here daily, rather, nightly. The ob- servation is made at 9 p. m, so that it is simultanecus with similar as- cer being launched all over the United State Thin Stratosphere about two hours for the as high as it is going in most' cases will be 15 miles. That is a long way into the stratosphere, which here in wintertime is from six to seven miles above the earth. At the equator the stratosphere is higher, from 15 to 16 miles When the trument is of these set pounds. the roof or sions It n takes 1t 20, whict balloon bursts, the in- floated back to earth by Here's where we touch n farmers’ daughters ahoma City, says Kleinsas- about 80 percent of the instru- ‘Aurora Which Lights Northern Skies Is Still A Scientific Mystery y H. W. DOUGLAS Assistant Meteorologist The be ight of auty and u\\')-nl&pn’mi the aurora borealis, “northern lights,” (called australh borealis in the Southern Hem phere) have been a source of won- der to man through the centuri The occurrence of this phenomenon has given rise to various theories as to its origin. C. ¥. Talman, Realm of the Air, rora: “An auroral electrical discharge in the rarefied gases of the upper atmosphere, very similar to the discharges seen in the Crookes tube of the labora- tory. It is believed to be due to the bombardment of the atmosphere by electrified particles shot out from the sun, and this bombardment, in turn, is especially active at times when there are large sun spots. The earth is a great magnet, and like other magnets, it has the property of deflecting from a straight path an electrical discharge occurring in its vicinity. This fact explains why in his book, The says of the au- display is an the streams of electrified particles | from the sun do not cause auroral glows all over the earth, but only n the two belts around the polar gions. It also explains how the particles can be twisted so far from a direct course as to cause an au- rora on the night side of the earth —the side turned away from the sun.” Many Forms For visual observations of the au- rora, the International Geodetic and Geophysical Union has the fol- lowing classifications: Forms with- out ray structure, including homo- genous quiet arcs, homogenous bands, pulsating arcs, diffuse lum- inous surfaces and pulsating sur- faces; forms with ray structure, con- sisting of arcs with-ray structure, banks with ray structure, draperies, radio-sonde ex- | and | staff. | rubber, | feet in| nt which the balloon | a foil-| > temperature (as low | d to a register | Up She Goes dio isn't sending “My country” for | very long. It gets into ether: tunes. | Besides being audible to the ob- server on the ground, the signais are recorded by means of a photo- eclectric cell and electric .eye on a piece of graph paper. Marks which ! |an inked bar makes on the slowly moving paper show the temperature, ! humidity and pressure at frequent intervals. From these readings, the | observer can compute the altitude of the balloon by means of a ther- modynamic diagram Automotive Static There are other marks on the pa- per, too. Strays, they are made by | radio interference from automobile motors A coaxial cable is used as a lead- i 3 {in from the aerial on the Federal l Building roof to the new radio-sonde | instrument room on the fcurth floor. | The cable is covered with | tight copper sheath and is cushion- " ., | ed with nitrogen for insulation pur- | e 52 i poses. The reason for all this is that BT | the sending set hanging under the ballcon transmits extremely short wave and frequency signals, which must be picked up on an aerial of prescribed length. The lead- ins must not extend the aerial. What does the Weather Bureau tell from the signals it receives? The answer is “much.” Weather men are looking more and more to the | 7 upper air for information on what | 8 the weather is likely to be tomor- row or next week. If there are found to be two contrasting zones | of air in layers above Juneau, for ~ instance, between them will be a “front” and the “front” is what ‘makes the weather, Used in Forecasts The helium balloon, red | parachute and radio-sonde Meteorologist Howard J. Thompson instrument go aloft. uses the clues from the radio-son | - ;obacna(ious in making his fore- ments are picked up and returned | €asts here. The balloons are launched to the Weather Bureau. The most |€VerY night cxcept in case of un- distant one to be returned was Sent usually adverse weather conditions in from 380 miles away, But of all | Which would put the instruments out | the instruments returned to the Bu- |0f commission. The Bureau has flich, | 1earned it doesn’t pay to launch one reau, there never has been one which | i ctill bore the parachute. The rea-|°f their balloons into a Taku wind 8 £ an oblique takeoff re- son is that the parachute is made | Recently e gt | sulted in a balloon becoming entan- : 3 igled in wires between the high scheol Kh.‘?""“‘ : |and grade school a block above the g Federal Building. Efforts to dis- A T he v RBAHIE 16 engage the equipment failing, Klein- ad y sasser had to shoot the balloon with expensive silk. but it really COStSig rifle and then put a carefully- cnly 39 cents a yard ‘znmod 22 bullet into the dangling ward Offered | instrument in order to silence its The silk is red so that the instru- |signals so another could be launched ments can be spotted from a dis- The very first radio-sonde in- tance. Kleinsasser and Russo don't expect very many of them to be|weeks later near Hazelton, B. C., an found in Alask In seven months air-line distance of 335 miles. The there have been six. A cash reward | long drift was due to a tandem ar- is paid anyone sending an instru- | rangement of small. hydrogen bal- ment back to the Weather Bureau.|locns being used because the helium The company which manufactures |had not arrived. Instead of com- the instruments can use some of the | ing down pronto as is the case parts over again farmer’s daughter,” “must be wearing in Oklahoma." says red | when a single large balloon bursts, Three signals are sent out by the Llw instrument was buoyed on by ascending instrument. One tells the | still intact small balloons even ai- temperature story, one about the|ter some of the group had broken pressure and the other about hu- | - midity. When the balloon is close it to” earth, the three are the \um:-iHANGmG MADE pitch as the first three notes of the ' song “America.” It just happens to be that way and wasn't arranged as a patriotic gesjure. As the bal- " First Execuhon in-History of Juneau, Seventh | in Terrifory loon gets higher, the temperature drops, pressure decreases and hu- midity varies so greatly that the A hanging made big news in Ju- neau last November 10 when Nel-!| | son Charles, 37, Ketchikan Native. | was executed for the murder of his | mother-in-law. | It was the first | legal hanging held in Juneau and, as far as could (rays and coronas, and flaming au- & Three had been held at Fairbanks, one at Sitka, one at Nome and one at. Valdez. No hanging had taken | place in Alaska since 1929. A gallows was erected here under | | the porch of the old. Courthouse and Capitol Building for the pur- pose. Twice before a gallows had been readied here for murderers, but one escaped on the eve of his |and many good photographs are scheduled hanging and was later | available for study. According to|shot, and the other was granted a measurements made by Professor | last minute commutation of sentence Stormer, the heights of the aurora by the President. vary from 50 miles to over 175 miles 2 o Tt above the surface of the earth. The American whaler Superior, During the winter of 1931-1932 Capt. Roys, commander, was the special auroral observations were |first commercial vessel to pass carried on at the University of Al hrough Bering Strait. different forms of aurorae sharply defined but merge another, and different be observed at the same | he are not |into one | forms ma - | time | Photographic measurement of the | | aurora have been made with consid- erable success for the past 20 yea by Prof. Carl Stormer in Norway an air- ‘| Bureau strument sent up here was recovered be learned, the seventh in Alaska.| THE DAILY ALASKA EMPIRE, MONDAY. MARCH 25, 1940 7 1(0AST GUARD VIGILANT ovcessam| INALASKA; LIGHTHOUSE SERVICE INDISPENSABLE AT WORK | By CARL RUSSO Junier Meteorclogist Soon after Benjamin Franklin and | scme of his contemporaries demon- ther travels, the art sting began to be weather maps of weather based upon synoptic prepared almost entirely from sur- face data consisting of the famil- iar metegrological elements: the vessels in Alaska in-| the Weather ied a rather gical stations air wind data about 114 such in| To accomplish this, has mainta dense network of aerol which furnish uppe At present there are stations in the States and four Alas] More recently the Weather Bureau selected about 30 stations, including Juneau and airbanks, where a more complete description of the meteorclogical state of the upper air is obtained daily by means of the device known as the radio- sonde The Coast Guard maintains at |the present time four active ves- ‘—.,---”NMW lsels in Alaskan waters: the Haida, a st Class cruising cutter at Ju- | neau; the Cyane, a 165 foot patrol WEAI“ER BUREAU }hcat at Ketchikan; .the Nemaha, a 11256 foot patrol boat at Ketchikan, MAKES GOOD USE ..o | The present Commander of the OF OBSERVAIIONS Coast Guard-Lighthouse ~ activities m Alaska is Commander M. J. Ryan, U 8. Coast Guard. U A' h Si d The Bonham, a sister vessel of pper Aimosphere Jiu |the Morris, relioved the Morris at | Seward. The Nemaha, also of the same class, both recently re-engined, Value fo Planes | ™ spencer a sm1 foot. cutier, | Is on neutrality patrol on the At- \lnnti(' ocean, leaving Cordova with- |out a cutter for the time being. There js a life boat crew and | three life boats stationed at Nome. {The station was destroyed by fire in 1934 and has not been rebuilt although plans and estimates have ireuL budget each year. Rescue, Transportation, Patrol The state of the weather. il v A ey sure, temperature, clouds, etc. clude ' rescue should be noted that cloud obser-!' . "¢ i B o vations were the only means of ob- | % grom perlls GUAND S5p7 . lss taining direct information of the|FPriavon of sick griinjited peracns 8 ® te and trom hospitals conditions aloft. Forecasts made |y .y of doctors and dentists to out- h;rnl ,',',("u"q"‘h f"' I‘m*“[“):t :‘\’f‘lfll‘m\.o[ government officials in connec- [ n': X“']“‘l‘m‘m“:‘ me\ the advent | Lon With the duties of their offices transportat stric of the airplane, however, more de-| aebe cuon of U 8 &District tailed and_specific forecasts were|io yoii court in the towns and required. The need of supplement-| i oo’ o e Alackn Peninsula ing the surface data with additional |y =aye e raa el T orce- upper air vations became MOXe | mont with' respect to fur seal, sea pIgen lotter, sea lion, walrus, whale, hali- Bering Sea and North Pacific ocean for prevention of alien fishing in Alaskan waters, Aids To Navigation | Until June 30, 1939, aids to ma- rine navigation on the coasts of the United States including Alaska, Ha- waiian Islands and Puerto Rico were stratosphere, the Weather Bureau will be in a position to give pilots weather information at these high It is interesting to note in pass- Cl€yations. ing that the first radiosonde ob-| The attention of meteorologis servations in the United States were | 48 8lso been attracted to the in- made at Fairbanks, Alaska, where 'eStiBation of altitudes which are fon foreign.made . insteuments were| Much higher than those attained by instruments attached to balloo The Stratcsphere 4 el km‘_’w“.dm of the tention to the fact that there ap- composition and meteorlogical state |PeAS o be a casual relation be- of the atmcsphere to a height of |UW¢eD the magnetic storms that oc- about 20 miles has been familigr [CUF I0 the ionized layers at ele- £ Dafacrolaiits for woma g {vations in the neighborhood of 100 | That, pressure and temperature de- | 10 200 miles, designated as the Ken- {creased with altitude was familiar|¢Y-Heaviside and Appleton lay- ers, and the subsequent trend In 1899 a Prench scientist, Teisser- 7 lence de Bort disgovered, by means $to Made of Bitg a self-recording device, that al- The radio-sonde observations fur Biatir: the. tolxenature 'decreaced | sh the pilots indications at which s!eadl]\ at_approximately 3° F, for |level the hazard of ice formation ety 1,000 esb it oensed ik 4 on aircraft is at a maximum, the suddenly to fall after reaching & :rr::;;:;vm;mfi cloud. layers, a height of about six to seven miles|, ~ ~ of. the. temperatyre |and a temperature of about -65 P o lat all altitudes of the flight, and | considerable distance at an almost o eyl constant value S . A To the meteorologists it has 3 This region where the tempera- possible newte;e&;gods of a:’;;:::; ture remains nearly constant js | the weather maps and has furnish- rnov’n ‘dS thcl .s‘(ldlflxplu re of which ‘cd quantitative measurements of, the vfi]f;flt;]}:}l{s“ uxlmlpf 1”: »m:(; IJ-\]<Jc n'unwnhere. which is another long r g © hisstep toward changing a science la_mous ascent to a height of 114 which has been largely empirical miles. into a physical and more exact |and the Bonham, a 125 foot patrol Ied for In'orma"on Of {relieved the Alert at Ketchikan been made and included in the cur- ifrom this type of map may have ,ci.. . o munities; transportation hut and other fisheries; patrol of pcn('Lmlv\ »uwml l)‘ll](‘\ into the released during the summer of 1933.| GEUTIEONE SUACHCd o BATORS. [to mountain climbers for 400 years. |y, CHE 1€ SEREATOE |F. and continued thereafter for 2| the amoung of “bumpiness” at yar- science. Thus we may consider the at- mosphere as being divided into two regions: (1) The troposphere—a | |layer composed of thé lower six or seven miles but within which all the |s50n should be equipped with a round {phenomena such as storms, the trip ticket and enough money to “highs” and “lows" which we know |live without employment until he as the “weather” are confined Tlus‘hffi proved to his own satisfaction is the region of active convection.|that Alaska does, or does not, offer (2) The stratosphere — the region|him a congenial or profitable which lies above the troposphere. | ture. | Here convection is lacking and the 3 ->-o - weather is more settled. The high The preducing gold lodes are wind velocities which are usually Widely distributed through the Ter- found in the upper part of the Iitory, but over two-thirds of the ’Lrokphprc do not exist in the strat-|output comes from lodes in South- | osphere. These are some of the fa- | east Alaska, where accessibil vorable considerations for the in- deep-water routes of communication creased amount of flying in Lhevmld other favorable conditions have stratosphere. From the data ob-|Permitted the successful mining of Itained by the radio-sonde, whiéh'immense tonnages of low-gfdde ore -t Before coming to Alaska, with the idea of securing employment, a p aska at College under the .super- - vision of the late Prof. Verne B. Fuller. Photographic observations were made, 134 satisfactory photo- | graphs being obtained | Almost Every Night The aurora borealis is more fre- quently observed over Interior Al-| aska than over Southeast Alaska. | due to its more northerly latitude and less average cloudiness. The | period of maximum frequency Iis| during the early autumn and early spring. During the nine months of | Prof. Fuller's observations at Col- lege, from August 13, 1931, to May 5, 1932, a total of 267 days, there were 195 days when aurorae were observed, 55 days when cloudiness prevented observations, and 17 days | when the sky was clear enough that | aurorae could have been seen but none were observed. Over the same | period 19 aurorae were observed by | the Juneau Weather Bureau Office. | Whether the display is viewed by the “old-timer” or by the compara- tive newcomer to the Territory, it seldom fails to impress the behold- er with a sense of magnitude of this manifestation of one of Na- | ture’s forces, i GEORGE H. PETERS(W [ Democratic Candidate for REPRESENTAT'VE Terrilfirial Primaries—April 30, 1940 Sitka, Alaska | light-house {and servicing buoys and unattend- ‘olhel smaller tender, the Alder, was | rincipal activities of the|placed in commission with regular of persons and prop-|a 72-foot boat with transporta- | of | bordering the Pacific Ocean The value of the radiobeam navigation in waters off the Alaskan Coast was early recognized and nin radiobeacons have been established and are being maintained Progress in Decade ing table shows * during the last tablishing aids in Figures given are '\x.w 30 of the respective years. = 7 1929 1934 1939 under the jurisdiction of with ed States Lighthouse of the several marine bureaus ed under the Department of € merce. In 1811 Alaska was mad separate lighthouse district and in- stallation” and maintenance of aids to navigation in Territorial waters were placed under the immediate | supervision of a District Superin- tendent. of Lighthouses with head- quarters located at Ketchikan A depot is maintair at Ketchi- kan including a la wharf with berthing accommodations for light- house vessels, a storehouse, lamp <hop, machine shop, carpenter shop. blacksmith shop and facilities for handling and servicing heavy buoys | and other equipment. During re cent years two sea-goir steam tenders, the Cedar and the Hemlock, have been maintain- ed on duty throughout the year supplying stations which have keep- ers, furnishing transportation for personnel, constructnig minor aids now The progre: fol the ten the for tations keepers Miner lights other than floating Lighted buoys Fog signals Radiobeams | Unlighted buoys Daymarks i N group- 203 25 ! 3 207 172 380 48 15 6 E: 204 304 184 180 337 882 years 817 last few ice has been tematic rebuilding purpose of which is to replace frame buildings at Alaska Light stations which are in poor condition and of obsolete type with modern permanent reinforced c | erete structures. Four stations ha already been completed and repair of a fifth station, Scotch Cap Light Station, is now under way, scheduled for completion in the summer of 1940. Similar light stations are be- ing modernized as to equipment and living quarters. To promote more efficient operation and for benefit of station personnel, all except two keeper stations in Alaska are now Total During Lighthouse gaged on rogram 950 the Ser a the en- | ed lights. In the spring of 1939 an- crew to assist in the wo diesel Tius 15 engine | § power. Buoys and Recognizing the guarding marine navigation from the exceptjonal hazards encoun- tered, it has been the policy of the Government to expand and improve the tem of aids to navigation in these waters as rapidly as funds could be provided therefor from ap- propriaticns made by Congress. New lights in charge of resident keepers have been established from time to time at the more important sites and there are now 14 of these in commission, but the main expan- sien in the number of aids has been in the line of unlighted buoys and autematic lights, the comparatively low ini and maintenance cost of these making it possible to provide within reasonable expenditure the very large number of aids needed Areas in which aids are now maintained include the mainland shores of the Bering Sea, part of the Arctic Coast and a portion of the Aleutian Islands, in addition to the mainland and adjacent islands Lights need for safe- Alaska Re Everett Nowell JUNEAU >sentalive | precipitation and relative humidity | 7 equipped with radio communication facilitics Crews of lighthouse vessels and keepers of light stations render much important service aside from their normal duties, There have been many instances in Alaska when they have assisted vessels or per- ns in distress. Several Alaska sta- tions are cooperatinz with the Weather Bureau and the Alaska Aercnautics and Communications Commission by furnishing regular daily weather reports, which infor- mation disseminated by broad- casting agencies for assistance of marine and air navigation and for benefit of the general public. Some lightkeepers have Supplied data and specimens for use in connection with scientific investigations conducted by certain persons or organizations The total number of employees ngaged in Lighthouse work in Al- aska ocn June 30, 1939 s 249, § luding 43 temporary empl gaged on construction work. On July 1, 1939, under authority of the President’s Reorganization plan No. 11, the former Lighthouse Service was discontinued as a sep- arate crganization and its duties and personnel were transferred to the Ceast Guard of the Treasury Department. Since that date all cperations connected with estab- lishing and maintaining marine aids to navigation have been conducted by the Coast Guard. Alaska has been designated officially as the Juneau is | Coast Guard District and all Coast | Guard operations will be in charge of a District Commander, o — BALLOU & WRIGHT “ Automotive House Complete —WHOLESALE— SEATTLE dbpen With Credit! Rivers are spanned . . . the mysteries of the architect’s plans . goods are bought and sold . . . homes are For Credit is the. life-blood of our modern business system. mitted into steel and brick . started. It is the genie that makes countless dreams come partner, Credit speaks with a loud voice. are trans- true. Unlike the silent This bank is always ready to extend its Credit facilities to reputable firms and individuals. Investiga- tions are friendly and eonfidential. If the use of additional funds will find a definite need in your own program, why not stop in and discuss it with an officer of the bank? The First National Juneau, Alaska