Again, the presence of so much snow would lower the summer temperature, and prevent to a great extent the melting of the snow.
There are three separate ways whereby accumulated masses of snow and ice tend to lower the summer temperature, viz.:—
First. By means of direct radiation. No matter what the intensity of the sun’s rays may be, the temperature of snow and ice can never rise above 32°. Hence the presence of snow and ice tends by direct radiation to lower the temperature of all surrounding bodies to 32°.
In Greenland, a country covered with snow and ice, the pitch has been seen to melt on the side of a ship exposed to the direct rays of the sun, while at the same time the surrounding air was far below the freezing-point; a thermometer exposed to the direct radiation of the sun has been observed to stand above 100°, while the air surrounding the instrument was actually 12° below the freezing-point.[29] A similar experience has been recorded by travellers on the snow-fields of the Alps.[30]
These results, surprising as they no doubt appear, are what we ought to expect under the circumstances. The diathermancy of air has been well established by the researches of Professor Tyndall on radiant heat. Perfectly dry air seems to be nearly incapable of absorbing radiant heat. The entire radiation passes through it almost without any sensible absorption. Consequently the pitch on the side of the ship may be melted, or the bulb of the thermometer raised to a high temperature by the direct rays of the sun, while the surrounding air remains intensely cold. “A joint of meat,” says Professor Tyndall, “might be roasted before a fire, the air around the joint being cold as ice.”[31] The air is cooled by contact with the snow-covered ground, but is not heated by the radiation from the sun.
When the air is humid and charged with aqueous vapour, a similar cooling effect also takes place, but in a slightly different way. Air charged with aqueous vapour is a good absorber of radiant heat, but it can only absorb those rays which agree with it in period. It so happens that rays from snow and ice are, of all others, those which it absorbs best. The humid air will absorb the total radiation from the snow and ice, but it will allow the greater part of, if not nearly all, the sun’s rays to pass unabsorbed. But during the day, when the sun is shining, the radiation from the snow and ice to the air is negative; that is, the snow and ice cool the air by radiation. The result is, the air is cooled by radiation from the snow and ice (or rather, we should say, to the snow and ice) more rapidly than it is heated by the sun; and, as a consequence, in a country like Greenland, covered with an icy mantle, the temperature of the air, even during summer, seldom rises above the freezing-point. Snow is a good reflector, but as simple reflection does not change the character of the rays they would not be absorbed by the air, but would pass into stellar space.
Were it not for the ice, the summers of North Greenland, owing to the continuance of the sun above the horizon, would be as warm as those of England; but, instead of this, the Greenland summers are colder than our winters. Cover India with an ice sheet, and its summers would be colder than those of England.
Second. Another cause of the cooling effect is that the rays which fall on snow and ice are to a great extent reflected back into space.[32] But those that are not reflected, but absorbed, do not raise the temperature, for they disappear in the mechanical work of melting the ice. The latent heat of ice is about 142° F.; consequently in the melting of every pound of ice a quantity of heat sufficient to raise one pound of water 142° disappears, and is completely lost, so far as temperature is concerned. This quantity of heat is consumed, not in raising the temperature of the ice, but in the mechanical work of tearing the molecules separate against the forces of cohesion binding them together into the solid form. No matter what the intensity of the sun’s heat may be, the surface of the ground will remain permanently at 32° so long as the snow and ice continue unmelted. [**P1:missing page number]
Third. Snow and ice lower the temperature by chilling the air and condensing the vapour into thick fogs. The great strength of the sun’s rays during summer, due to his nearness at that season, would, in the first place, tend to produce an increased amount of evaporation. But the presence of snow-clad mountains and an icy sea would chill the atmosphere and condense the vapour into thick fogs. The thick fogs and cloudy sky would effectually prevent the sun’s rays from reaching the earth, and the snow, in consequence, would remain unmelted during the entire summer. In fact, we have this very condition of things exemplified in some of the islands of the Southern Ocean at the present day. Sandwich Land, which is in the same parallel of latitude as the north of Scotland, is covered with ice and snow the entire summer; and in the island of South Georgia, which is in the same parallel as the centre of England, the perpetual snow descends to the very sea-beach. The following is Captain Cook’s description of this dismal place:—“We thought it very extraordinary,” he says, “that an island between the latitudes of 54° and 55° should, in the very height of summer, be almost wholly covered with frozen snow, in some places many fathoms deep.... The head of the bay was terminated by ice-cliffs of considerable height; pieces of which were continually breaking off, which made a noise like a cannon. Nor were the interior parts of the country less horrible. The savage rocks raised their lofty summits till lost in the clouds, and valleys were covered with seemingly perpetual snow. Not a tree nor a shrub of any size were to be seen. The only signs of vegetation were a strong-bladed grass growing in tufts, wild burnet, and a plant-like moss seen on the rocks.... We are inclined to think that the interior parts, on account of their elevation, never enjoy heat enough to melt the snow in such quantities as to produce a river, nor did we find even a stream of fresh water on the whole coast.”[33]
Captain Sir James Ross found the perpetual snow at the sea-level at Admiralty Inlet, South Shetland, in lat. 64°; and while near this place the thermometer in the very middle of summer fell at night to 23° F.; and so rapidly was the young ice forming around the ship that he began, he says, “to have serious apprehensions of the ships being frozen in.”[34] At the comparatively low latitude of 59° S., in long. 171° E. (the corresponding latitude of our Orkney Islands), snow was falling on the longest day, and the surface of the sea at 32°.[35] And during the month of February (the month corresponding to August in our hemisphere) there were only three days in which they were not assailed by snow-showers.[36]