Polar Warming

The winter air high above the North Pole should be the coldest part of the atmosphere. But rocket soundings have shown that 50 miles above the pole, the air is warmer in winter ( -- 38DEG C.) than in summer ( -- 100DEG C.). In fact, the pole's winter air at this altitude is warmer than that over New Mexico in midsummer (75DEG C.). Last week Dr. Will Kellogg of Rand Corp. told a Los Angeles meeting of the American Geophysical Union that this paradoxical warmth comes from the recombination of broken oxygen molecules.

Dr. Kellogg explained that when the sun's radiation hits the atmosphere 75 miles above the earth, it breaks up many two-atom molecules of oxygen into separate atoms. The air is so thin at that level that the lonely oxygen atoms can seldom get together and reunite to form normal molecules. When the long darkness of winter creeps over the north polar region, an area of abnormally low pressure develops at 30 to 40 miles elevation. It sucks air down from above, and with the air come oxygen atoms that were brought to the pole by the circulation of the high atmosphere. The air is compressed by sinking down, the atoms get closer together, and many of them manage to combine into molecules. The process gives off heat, which Dr. Kellogg thinks is responsible for the winter warmth of the high polar atmosphere.

What effect this polar heating has on the world's weather Dr. Kellogg does not know yet. He suspects that it may be connected with the sudden "explosive warmings" that mark the breakup of winter over many parts of the earth.

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