These figures sufficiently indicate the main characteristics of the air temperatures of Asia. Throughout its northern portion the winter is long and of extreme severity; and even down to the circle of 35° N. lat., the minimum temperature is almost as low as zero of Fahrenheit. The summers are hot, though short in the northern latitudes, the maximum of summer heat being comparatively little less than that observed in the tropical countries farther south. The moderating effect of the proximity of the ocean is felt in an important degree along the southern and eastern parts of Asia, where the land is broken up into islands or peninsulas. The great elevations above the sea-level of the central part of Asia, and of the table-lands of Afghanistan and Persia, tend to exaggerate the winter cold; while the sterility of the surface, due to the small rainfall over the same region, operates powerfully in the opposite direction in increasing the summer heat. In the summer a great accumulation of solar heat takes place on the dry surface soil, from which it cannot be released upwards by evaporation, as might be the case were the soil moist or covered with vegetation, nor can it be readily conveyed away downwards as happens on the ocean. In the winter similar consequences ensue, in a negative direction, from the prolonged loss of heat by radiation in the long and clear nights—an effect which is intensified wherever the surface is covered with snow, or the air little charged with vapour. In illustration of the very slow diffusion of heat in the solid crust of the earth, and as affording a further indication of the climate of northern Asia, reference may here be made to the frozen soil of Siberia, in the vicinity of Yakutsk. In this region the earth is frozen permanently to a depth of more than 380 ft. at which the temperature is still 5° or 6° Fahr. below the freezing point of water, the summer heat merely thawing the surface to a depth of about 3 ft. At a depth of 50 ft. the temperature is about 15° Fahr. below the freezing point. Under such conditions of the soil, the land, nevertheless, produces crops of wheat and other grain from fifteen to forty fold.
The very high summer temperatures of the area north of the tropic of Cancer are sufficiently accounted for, when compared with those observed south of the tropic, by the increased length of the day in the higher latitude, which more than compensates for the loss of heat due to the smaller mid-day altitude of the sun. The difference between the heating power of the sun’s rays at noon on the 21st of June, in latitude 20° and in latitude 45°, is only about 2%; while the accumulated heat received during the day, which is lengthened to 1512 hours in the higher latitude, is greater by about 11% than in the lower latitude, where the day consists only of 1314 hours.
Although the foregoing account of the temperatures of Asia supplies the main outline of the observed phenomena, a very important modifying cause, of which more will be said hereafter, comes into operation over the whole of the tropical region, namely, the periodical summer rains. These tend very greatly to arrest the increase of the summer heat over the area where they prevail, and otherwise give it altogether peculiar characteristics.
The great summer heat, by expanding the air upwards, disturbs the level of the planes of equal pressure, and causes an outflow of the upper strata from the heated area. The winter cold produces an effect of just an opposite nature, and causes an accumulation of air over the cold area. The Pressure and Winds.diminution of barometric pressure which takes place all over Asia during the summer months, and the increase in the winter, are hence, no doubt, the results of the alternate heating and cooling of the air over the continent.
The necessary and immediate results of such periodical changes of pressure are winds, which, speaking generally, blow from the area of greatest to that of least pressure—subject, however, to certain modifications of direction, arising from the absolute motion of the whole body of the air due to the revolution of the earth on its axis from west to east. The south-westerly winds which prevail north of the equator during the hot half of the year, to which navigators have given the name of the south-west monsoon (the latter word being a corruption of the Indian name for season), arise from the great diminution of atmospheric pressure over Asia, which begins to be strongly marked with the great rise of temperature in April and May, and the simultaneous relatively higher pressure over the equator and the regions south of it. This diminution of pressure, which continues as the heat increases till it reaches its maximum in July soon after the solstice, is followed by the corresponding development of the south-west monsoon; and as the barometric pressure is gradually restored, and becomes equalized within the tropics soon after the equinox in October, with the general fall of temperature north of the equator, the south-west winds fall off, and are succeeded by a north-east monsoon, which is developed during the winter months by the relatively greater atmospheric pressure which then occurs over Asia, as compared with the equatorial region.
Although the succession of the periodical winds follows the progress of the seasons as just described, the changes in the wind’s direction everywhere take place under the operation of special local influences which often disguise the more general law, and make it difficult to trace. Thus the south-west monsoon begins in the Arabian Sea with west and north-westerly winds, which draw round as the year advances to south-west and fall back again in the autumn by north-west to north. In the Bay of Bengal the strength of the south-west monsoon is rather from the south and south-east, being succeeded by north-east winds after October, which give place to northerly and north-westerly winds as the year advances. Among the islands of the Malay Archipelago the force of the monsoons is much interrupted, and the position of this region on the equator otherwise modifies the directions of the prevailing winds. The southerly summer winds of the Asiatic seas between the equator and the tropic do not extend to the coasts of Java, and the south-easterly trade winds are there developed in the usual manner. The China Sea is fully exposed to both monsoons, the normal directions of which nearly coincide with the centre of the channel between the continent of Asia and the eastern islands.
The south-west monsoon does not generally extend, in its character of a south-west wind, over the land. The current of air flowing in from over the sea is gradually diverted towards the area of least pressure, and at the same time is dissipated and loses much of its original force. The winds which pass northward over India blow as south-easterly and easterly winds over the north-eastern part of the Gangetic plain, and as south winds up the Indus. They seem almost entirely to have exhausted their northward velocity by the time they have reached the northern extremity of the great Indian plain; they are not felt on the table-lands of Afghanistan, and hardly penetrate into the Indus basin or the ranges of the Himalaya, by which mountains, and those which branch off from them into the Malay peninsula, they are prevented from continuing their progress in the direction originally imparted to them.
Among the more remarkable phenomena of the hotter seas of Asia must be noticed the revolving storms or cyclones, which are of frequent occurrence in the hot months in the Indian Ocean and China Sea, in which last they are known under the name of typhoon. The cyclones of the Bay of Bengal appear to originate over the Andaman and Nicobar islands, and are commonly propagated in a north-westward direction, striking the east coast of the Indian peninsula at various points, and then often advancing with an easterly tendency over the land, and passing with extreme violence across the delta of the Ganges. They occur in all the hot months, from June to October, and more rarely in November, and appear to be originated by adverse currents from the north meeting those of the south-west monsoon. The cyclones of the China Sea also occur in the hot months of the year, but they advance from north-east to south-west, though occasionally from east to west; they originate near the island of Formosa, and extend to about the 10th degree of N. lat. They are thus developed in nearly the same latitudes and in the same months as those of the Indian Sea, though their progress is in a different direction. In both cases, however, the storms appear to advance towards the area of greatest heat. In these storms the wind invariably circulates from north by west through south to east.
The heated body of air carried from the Indian Ocean over southern Asia by the south-west monsoon comes up highly charged with watery vapour, and hence in a condition to release a large body of water as rain upon the land, whenever it is brought into circumstances which reduce its temperature Rainfall.in a notable degree. Such a reduction of temperature is brought about along the greater part of the coasts of India and of the Burmo-Siamese peninsula by the interruption of the wind current by continuous ranges of mountains, which force the mass of air to rise over them, whereby the air being rarefied, its specific capacity for heat is increased and its temperature falls, with a corresponding condensation of the vapour originally held in suspension.
This explanation of the principal efficient cause of the summer rains of south Asia is immediately based on an analysis of the complicated phenomena actually observed, and it serves to account for many apparent anomalies. The heaviest falls of rain occur along lines of mountain of some extent directly facing the vapour-bearing winds, as on the Western Ghats of India and the west coast of the Malay peninsula. The same results are found along the mountains at a distance from the sea, the heaviest rainfall known to occur anywhere in the world (not less than 600 in. in the year) being recorded on the Khasi range about 100 m. north-east of Calcutta, which presents an abrupt front to the progress of the moist winds flowing up from the Bay of Bengal. The cessation of the rains on the southern border of Baluchistan, west of Karachi, obviously arises from the projection of the south-east coast of Arabia, which limits the breadth of the south-west monsoon air current and the length of the coast-line directly exposed to it. The very small and irregular rainfall in Sind and along the Indus is to be accounted for by the want of any obstacle in the path of the vapour-bearing winds, which, therefore, carry the uncondensed rain up to the Punjab, where it falls on the outer ranges of the western Himalaya and of Afghanistan.
The diurnal mountain winds are very strongly marked on the Himalaya, where they probably are the most active agents in determining the precipitation of rain along the chain—the monsoon currents, as before stated, not penetrating among the mountains. The formation of dense banks of cloud in the afternoon, when the up wind is strongest, along the southern face of the snowy ranges of the Himalaya, is a regular daily phenomenon during the hotter months of the year, and heavy rain, accompanied by electrical discharges, is the frequent result of such condensation.
Too little is known of the greater part of Asia to admit of any more being said with reference to this part of the subject, than to