On the Cold in March, and Absence of Sunspots

Abstract

I WAS travelling when Dr. Woeikof's letter appeared in NATURE (vol. xxviii. p. 53), and could not sooner reply to his criticisms on my communication (vol. xxvii. p. 551), “Unprecedented Cold in the Riviera—Absence of Sunspots.” Let me first remark that I do not go so far as to “ascribe (as Dr. Woeikof says that I do) the great cold of March, 1883, at the Riviera, to the absence of sunspots.” My observations prove only the coincidence of a sudden and unprecedented visitation of cold, with an absence of sunspots (the more remarkable as occurring during a maximum sunspot period); and the further coincidence of a progressive rise in temperature with the return of the sunspots; but I add, “These observations are too few and too imperfect to warrant any decided conclusions; but they add to those already made in evidence of the connection between the absence of sunspots and the diminution of terrestrial heat; and I trust they may be followed by further and more exact investigations, to determine the influence of our great luminary on the weather and climate of the world.”