On the Pleionian Variations of the Discharge of the Rhine at Basel

American Geographical Society

On the Pleionian Variations of the Discharge of the Rhine at BaselAuthor(s): Henryk ArctowskiSource: Geographical Review, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Jan., 1940), pp. 138-141Published by: American Geographical SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/210454 .

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ON THE PLEIONIAN VARIATIONS OF THE DISCHARGE OF THE RHINE AT BASEL

Henryk Arctowski

M /[ OST of the many researches on climatic variations have been made with the purpose of finding given periodicities. A large number of periods have thus been found; but many if not all of them are problematic, simply be-

cau?e the excess or deficiency of temperature, pressure, or rainfall of a given year can never be observed all over the world. There are always areas of compensation.

To ascertain whether temperature was above or below normal on the earth's surface, all available data from all parts of the world have to be taken into consideration and mapped. Only then can a predominance of positive or negative anomalies during a given year be determined. By using this purely geographical method the author was able to show, for example, that the mean air temperature of the continental areas and of a number of oceanic islands was at least 0.3' C. higher during I900

than during I893. It is interesting to notice that these were years of a minimum and a maximum of sunspots respectively.

For convenience of expression the author called the areas of positive departures thermopleions or pleions and the areas of negative departures antipleions or meions.'

The pleionian centers displace themselves. The "pendulation" of a pleionian center in North America during the decade I90o-i909 was traced by using overlapping I2-month means and overlapping departure maps.2 For the following decade, i9i0-i919, more extensive researches were made and world maps of tempera- ture3 and atmospheric-pressure anomalies4 were drawn and studied in detail. Aero- logical observations made at Agra, India, at Paris, and at Lindenberg, near Berlin, also demonstrated the fact that the pleionian temperature variations observed on the earth's surface are reversed at an altitude of I0 to I2 kilometers.' Hence the vertical temperature gradients change, and these changes must depend on, or are the cause of, the formation of pleionian centers.

This leads naturally to the study of the exchange of air masses affecting rainfall. To simplify such researches, river-discharge data should be examined first. A series of observations on the water level and discharge of the Rhine, begun at Basel in i8o8 and seemingly perfectly homogeneous up to I933,6 is admirably suited to the purpose.

In the course of time certain changes in the river bed have caused changes in the mean level of the waters at Basel.7 Because of this fact, it is preferable, in determining the variations, to take into consideration only the monthly and annual means of the discharge of the river in cubic meters a second.

The curves of the annual means and those of the overlapping means for 5, I0,

and 20 consecutive years are shown in Figure I. The extreme values are as follows.

1 Henryk Arctowski: L'enchainment des variations climatiques, Brussels, i9o0. 2 Henryk Arctowski: A Study of the Changes in the Distribution of Temperature in Europe

and North America during the Years I900 to i9o0, Annals New York Acad. of Sci., Vol. 24, I9I4-

I9I5, pp. 39-II3.

3Communications Inst. de Giophys. et de Meteorol. de t'Univ. de Lw6w, Nos. 8-Io, I5-I8 (in Vol.

[II), I9, 23 (in Vol. 2), 34, 39 (in Vol. 3), 48, 54, 56 (in Vol. 4), 57, 66 (in Vol. 5), 79 (in Vol. 6), 93,

I03 (in Vol. 8), I924-I936. 4 Ibid., No. I36, I939.

6 Ibid., No. 85 (in Vol. 7), I934. 6 The monthly means for the years I8o8 to I925 have been taken from C. Ghezzi: Die Abfluss-

verhaltnisse des Rheins in Basel, Mitt. des Amtes fur Wasserwirtschaft No. I9, Bern, 1926, and those for I926 to I933 from the Annuaire Hydrographique de la Suisse.

7 Ghezzi, op. cit., p. 80.

I38



VARIATIONS OF THE RHINE I39

11 8 ; E 1 18T 2io0 ISGO 870 I 1800 is0 110 19

11103 L 11880 din m%,

|0 2040mVse i

1 \913197S:8 1861-186538.:30 1\10-919 V3 1856-1865:902 :23

9-3 87, 1 5-81454 1945 64m183

1b

o913 :3439 and t 92t : 6o 6 Difference: 833 CUt m./sec. 1913-1917: II8I "i8i-i865: 875 :306 I"

1910-1919:I131 I856-I 865: 900 " 23I It

1912-1931: IO87 "I856-I875: 942 " 1:45 It

These figures and the diagrams clearly show the existence of important long-range variations. The question arises whether these data warrant a search for periodicities.

On the curve of lustral means we can find four principal maxima, at distances of 30, 33, and 36 years. On that of overlapping ten-year means the maxima are 28, 32, and 35 years apart, and on the last curve the figures are 24, 29, and 47 years.

A period of about 33 years is therefore admissible. But instead of accepting this figure it seems advisable to call these long-range variations macropleionian, since they are the result of an elimination of the pleionian variations shown on the curves of overlapping 12-month means (Figs. 2 and 3).

FIG. 2-Overlapping 12-monthly means from 1813 to I852. Q, discharge of the Rhine; Z, levels of the Lake of Zurich.



140 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

Do secular variations exist? The 20-year curve (Fig. i) is very suggestive. Tak- ing the maxima of I812-i83i and 1912-I931 to be the maxima of a secular variation, we may admit that the minimum of i856-i875, including the maxima of I836- i855 and i864-i883, belongs to an uplift of the variation between discontinuities due to a reaction against an excessive amplitude of the secular variation.

Concerning the pleionian variations of the years i813 to i852, it is astonishing to note what a great similarity there is between the curves of the changes in the mean

water level of the Lake of Zurich8 and the curve of the discharge of the Rhine at Basel (Fig. 3).

The greatest ex- tremes at Zurich (means of 12 consecutive months) are 38.9 and 23.4 Swiss inches.

For the variations observed during the years 1914 to 1933 it is interesting to compare the discharge of the waters of the Rhone at Scex with that of the Rhine at Basel. A certain similarity between the two curves is ap- parent (Fig. 3 C, D).

The maxima and minima of the curve of Basel are not always perfectly characteristic, so that it is difficult to establish the mean duration and mean am-

plitude of the pleions. At least 47 certain maxima can be counted on the curves for the years I8o8 to I933, which gives 2.7 as the mean duration of the pleions and a difference of 250 cubic meters a second as the mean amplitude, or about one- fourth of the amplitude of the normal annual variation.

If we take the I0 years of greatest and least discharges Q, the mean annual variations for these two groups of years are:

Cu. m./sec. J. F. M. A. M. J. J. A. S. 0. N. D. Max. . . 835 788 1078 II50 i6oo 2009 I999 I803 I597 II77 I099 869

Min.. . . 502 464 592 843 980 II70 II66 I225 896 644 559 555

The years I8I6 I8I7, I824, I83I, I86o, I867, I896, I910, I914, and I922 are those of maxima, I826, I832, I857, i858, I865, I874, I884, I893, I895, and I921

those of minima, of the values Q. Comparison of the diagrams of these two variations is interesting (Fig. 4). The

first curve is asymmetric because of the June maximum, and the values from Novem- ber to January show an uplifted minimum. In the curve of the low annual means the minimum for the winter months is also uplifted, and for the months from May to July, because of a reaction against a well pronounced annual amplitude, the maximum is depressed. Discontinuities characterize the variations in both cases.

-1000

-1100 N

-1000

1000 1 083

143390 00

1300-

B 1 2"'; " 'J ' *i X ' ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~1zo- 1100- B f9~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~113 1000-

9000

1003 8000 700-

679 mY'S 1 00

,1300

-1000 1309 "000

n'/'t"'4'^'ff"0Xl 10t !933

00

-700Z M/ 0 00 0Z5 304

zoo

ISO 170a

FIG. 3-A, B, C, overlapping means of the discharge of the Rhine from I865 to I933; D, the discharge of the Rhone from I9I4-I933.

8 H. Pestalozzi: Ueber die Hohenanderungen des Ziirichsee's, Nouveaux Memoires Soc. Helvetique des Sci. Nat., Vol. I4, Zurich, I855.



VARIATIONS OF THE RHINE 14 I

Several remarkable coincidences of well pronounced maxima or minima on the curve of overlapping means and maxima and minima of sunspot frequency justify taking into consideration the following means. They are those of years of maxima and minima of the solar cycles considered and of the two years preceding and the three years following each solar maximum or minimum. The figures are:

-2 -I Max. + I +2 +3 years IOI4 IO62 I047 990 970 I029

-2 -I Min. +I +2 +3 963 I028 IO83 IQ59 990 IQ29

The diagrams (Fig. 5) show a maximum in the discharge of the Rhine a year before the year of sunspot maximum and another one, more distinct, corresponding to the minimum of sunspots. Less accentuated inter- mediary maxima must also be noted.

The existence of four maxima during each approximately II-year solar cycle is therefore the rule for the means. This ex- plains the 2.7 years' duration of the pleions, so far as means are concerned.

In reality, the maxima of the detailed curve do not necessarily coincide with the sunspot maxima and minima. It could not be otherwise, since, if the variations of meteorological phenomena-rainfall in particular-depend on solar phenomena, the direct reactions will not necessarily be observed in each case on the northern slopes of the Alps.

In the case of pleionian variations of temperature and atmospheric pressure, antipleionian centers of compensation are always observed. The general atmospheric circulation undergoes modifications. The same may be said for cyclone tracks and the frequency of atmospheric waves.

What we really observe, therefore, is what should be expected: the formation of antiombrons (deficit of rainfall) in certain regions, corresponding to ombropleions (areas of excess of rainfall) in other regions.

As to the raison d'etre of the pleionian variation of about 2.7 years, or say one- fourth of the I I-year solar cycle, two different answers may be given. If the active factor is really the variation of sunspot frequency and if during the years of solar maxima the transport of water from the oceans toward the continental centers is greatest, then a principal ombropleional maximum will be observed every I I years. The other maxima would be due to discontinuities of such a variation-discontinuities reducing its amplitude. Or we may suppose that discontinuities of the solar activity play the principal role; for example, the discontinuities of the mean latitudes of the sunspots studied by Sp6rer.9 Then also, probably in connection with these latitude variations, the quotients of the areas of faculae and umbrae change. These changes were found to be similar to thermopleional variations.10

_2000 m3!/sec -l]oo msec

1500 105

1000 | 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 l lftl 1 l l l000

500 **. ~~~~~~~~~~~950 I I I I I I I I I I I~ ~ ~ ~~~I ci+1 i

FIG. 4 FIG. 5

FIG. 4-Annual variations of the discharge, Q; years of maxima and minima discharge.

FIG. 5-Discharge for the years of maxima and minima of sunspots.

9 Henryk Arctowski: Les variations de la latitude heliographique moyenne des taches solaires, Comptes Rendus de l'Acad. des Sci. [de Paris], Vol. i62, I9I6, pp. 50I-504.

10 Idem: The Pleionian Cycle of Climatic Fluctuations, Proc. Second Pan Amer. Sci. Congr., WVashington, U. S. A., Dec. 27, g to Jan. 8, I9I6, Vol. 2, I9I7, pp. I72-I78.



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On the Pleionian Variations of the Discharge of the Rhine at Basel