Neuere Fortschritte in der Wetterkunde (1873)

This scientific review article, bibliographically attributed to Carl Menger and signed “—r.”, surveys recent meteorological research through material by R. Scott published in the Austrian hydrographic office’s Mittheilungen aus dem Gebiete des Seewesens. Its central claim is qualified but affirmative: exact weather prediction remains beyond reach, yet practical meteorology has acquired sufficiently reliable foundations to challenge Arago’s dismissal of forecasting as incompatible with scientific reputation. The article moves from popular weather lore through statistical persistence, solar periodicity, and pressure–wind relations, ending with the social importance of prediction.

The opening critique concerns how beliefs survive contrary evidence. Weather sayings retain authority because they remain readily available in memory, whereas failed predictions go unrecorded and are forgotten. Migratory birds receive a cautious exemption, but their movements provide warnings too late to be especially useful. The decisive distinction is therefore between a suggestive sign and a reliable, timely basis for action.

Köppen’s research supplies the first constructive alternative. Telegraphy enables simultaneous observation across extensive territories, while long observational series support probabilistic forecasts. The principal finding reverses the expectation that a prolonged spell of weather must soon change:

Die Wahrscheinlichkeit einer Aenderung nimmt überdies ab, je länger die Witterung anhält, deren Aenderung erwartet wird.

English translation: The probability of a change moreover diminishes the longer the weather persists whose change is expected.

The article reports odds of three to one for continued rain or fine weather after five days, then follows the persistence principle through five-day temperature averages and the weaker connections between successive months. These numerical examples make uncertainty calculable without claiming to eliminate it. They also support a conceptual distinction between geographical compensation and local succession: an anomaly elsewhere on Earth does not mean that unusual weather at one location must be offset within the same year.

Mit anderen Worten: Wenn sich einmal ein bestimmter Witterungscharakter hergestellt hat, so hat dieser Charakter eine starke Erhaltungstendenz.

English translation: In other words: once a definite character of the weather has established itself, this character has a strong tendency to maintain itself.

The second research sequence shifts from persistence to periodicity. Meldrum’s observations in Mauritius connect cyclone frequency with the approximately eleven-year sunspot cycle, with rainfall observations from suitable Southern Hemisphere stations presented as corroboration. Although the record is acknowledged to be short, the article treats the correspondence as substantial evidence of a connection between solar changes and terrestrial weather. Its application to Europe, however, is restricted by overlapping atmospheric disturbances and a less regular relationship between storms and rainfall. A general mechanism does not yet identify where particular effects will occur:

Wir sind aber bisher leider noch nicht im Stande zu sagen, wo wir die eine und die andere Erscheinung aufzusuchen haben, und erst eine viel universellere Beobachtung der Witterungsverhältnisse der Erdoberfläche, als sie heute stattfindet, wird uns die nöthige statistische Grundlage zur Lösung des obigen Problems bieten.

English translation: Unfortunately, however, we are as yet not in a position to say where we have to look for the one phenomenon and where for the other, and only a far more universal observation of the weather conditions of the earth's surface than takes place today will offer us the statistical foundation necessary for the solution of the above problem.

Here the review makes the expansion of observation a condition of practical progress. Discovering a regularity is insufficient unless the evidence also permits geographically specific forecasts.

Buys-Ballot’s law introduces a third form of knowledge: the relationship between wind direction and differences in atmospheric pressure. The article reports its potential for assessing storm risk while emphasizing unresolved problems in quantifying wind strength, eliminating local influences, and determining the delay between pressure differences and wind. It likewise corrects the familiar assumption that a low barometer necessarily produces a storm:

Ein Sturm kann eben so gut durch eine Zunahme als durch eine Abnahme des Luftdruckes entstehen.

English translation: A storm can arise just as well from an increase as from a decrease of atmospheric pressure.

The qualification that most storms nevertheless accompany low pressure preserves the observed association without treating it as a complete explanation. Throughout, scientific advance consists in separating established relationships from the stronger predictive claims they cannot yet sustain.

The conclusion places these distinctions within a broad social argument. Forecasting matters to agriculture, navigation, viticulture, outdoor trades, grain speculation, consumers, and governments. Meteorology’s relevance thus extends beyond scientific curiosity to decisions whose consequences depend on uncertain future conditions. The article’s measured optimism rests on this conjunction: probabilistic knowledge can already be useful, while wider observation and better explanation promise to weaken the disrepute attached to weather prediction.