Cold (41 page)

The Coriolis effect is sometimes incorrectly called the Coriolis force. The spinning of the earth creates the appearance of
a force, but no force is applied.

Most of the folk sayings about weather in this chapter are from a delightful small book by René Chaboud titled
Weather: Drama of the Heavens
(1996, Harry N. Abrams, New York). In addition to concise explanations about weather patterns and phenomena, the book presents
dozens of color photographs depicting weather events, historical figures, and people collecting weather data from locations
ranging from Siberia to Texas.

David Laskin’s
The Children’s Blizzard
(2004, Harper Perennial, New York) provides far more details about the Blizzard of 1888.

Lewis Fry Richardson’s
Weather Prediction by Numerical Process
(1922; reprint, 2007, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge) was not his only accomplishment. Richardson also tried to use
numerical analyses to understand the causes of war and is considered the cofounder of the scientific analysis of conflict,
described in part in his
Arms and Insecurity
and
Statistics of Deadly Quarrels,
neither of which is currently readily available. Separately, he showed that shoreline length is a function of scale and that
shoreline length will increase as finer scales are used. This so-called Richardson effect is often ignored in technical papers
attempting to relate shoreline length to various ecological phenomena and political or economic statistics.

Some sources suggest that Lorenz had planned to mention a seagull’s wings rather than a butterfly’s wings. Lorenz was swayed
to the butterfly by another meteorologist, Philip Merilees. The ideas expressed in the talk — intended to explain why accurate
weather forecasting is so challenging — led to a blossoming of the much-misunderstood chaos theory, popularized in books and
movies, including
Jurassic Park
. The essence of chaos theory is that small differences in initial conditions can result in huge differences in subsequent
outcomes. Lorenz died on April 16, 2008, at age ninety.

James Glaisher wrote a full account of his balloon ascent, published on September 5, 1862, as “Greatest Height Ever Reached”
in the
British Association Report
(1862, pp. 383–85). During the ascent, Glaisher describes himself fading in and out of consciousness at high altitudes. He relates that his assistant, Mr. Coxwell, “felt insensibility coming over himself; that he became anxious to open the valve,
but in consequence of his having lost the use of his hands [because of the cold] he could not, and ultimately did so by seizing
the cord with his teeth, and dipping his head two or three times, until the balloon took a decided turn downwards.” The account
is available at
www.1902encyclopedia.com/A/AER/aeronautics-33.html
.

The anecdotes about strange weather events were found in
Weird Weather,
a collection compiled by Paul Simons (1997, Warner Books, London).

Part of Barrow’s history is captured in Charles Brower’s
Fifty Years Below Zero
(1942, Dodd, Mead, New York). The book describes in detail the mingling of cultures — the New England whalers and the Inupiat,
who were well established thousands of years before the New Englanders arrived and began slaughtering bowhead whales. The
Brower family name lives on in Barrow, with many families tracing lineage to Brower himself and an entire portion of Barrow
known as Browerville.

The abundance of wildlife in the North Slope oil fields is likely caused by a combination of habitat availability, food availability
(that is, from Dumpsters, workers ignoring restrictions on feeding wildlife, and other sources), and restrictions on hunting
and trapping.

Arctic backcountry travelers often argue over the need to carry fire-arms for bear protection. In one often told story, an
Arctic biologist dissuaded a curious polar bear by hitting it in the head with his shotgun. Many bear biologists consider
the polar bear to be less threatening than its cousin the grizzly bear. Although weapons provide psychological comfort, it
is worth noting that in addition to the risk of firearm accidents, shotguns add considerable weight to a traveler’s supplies.
In some cases, that weight capacity might be better used for extra food, fuel, shelter, or clothing or for a satellite telephone.

The bearded seal,
ugruk
in Iñupiaq, is a large ice seal — that is, a seal species dependent on sea ice for its survival. The spring whale hunt of
the Inupiat, conducted from the sea ice, relies on the use of
umiaq
, skin boats made from
ugruk
skins, because the boats are light enough to drag across the ice in search of openings where whales can be found. By the
autumn hunt, the nearshore sea ice has melted, and more substantial boats made from aluminum or fiberglass are used to search
for whales in the open sea.

The 1881 expedition to Barrow was undertaken concurrently with Greely’s disastrous trip as part of the first International
Polar Year. A second International Polar Year was held in 1932–33, and a third International Polar Year was held from 2007
to March 2009. The International Polar Years are intended to focus scientific effort (and funding) on the Arctic and Antarctic.

Editor David Norton’s
Fifty More Years Below Zero
(2001, Arctic Institute of North America, Fairbanks) provides a history of Western science in Barrow through the turn of
the twenty-first century. That history continues to evolve rapidly today. The Barrow Arctic Science Consortium provides extensive
logistical support for visiting scientists, and the North Slope Borough’s Department of Wildlife Management supports and encourages
both basic and applied studies.

Work by Nathan Pamperin, Erich Follmann, and Brian Person used satellite collars to track arctic foxes as they moved across
the sea ice. One fox stayed on the ice for 156 days and traveled more than fifteen hundred miles without touching shore.

FEBRUARY

Tom Shachtman’s
Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold
(1999, Mariner Books, New York) provides an interesting and plainly written account of the history of cold temperature research.
It also introduced me to Frederic Tudor, who is surprisingly poorly known even in the Boston area. A biography titled “Frederic
Tudor Ice King,” published in 1933 in the
Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society,
is available at
http://www.iceharvestingusa.com/Frederic%20Tudor% 20Ice%20King.html
.

Thomas Moore’s
An Essay on the Most Eligible Construction of Ice-Houses; also, A Description of the Newly Invented Machine Called the Refrigerator
(1803, Bonsal and Niles, Baltimore) is available at
http://www.digitalpresence.com/histarch/library/moor1803.html
.

Giambattista della Porta’s
Natural Magick
was first published in 1558 in Latin, but it was translated into Italian, French, and Dutch within a few years. It is available
in English at
http://homepages.tscnet.com/omard1/jportat5.html
.

Bacon’s speculations about Drebbel’s use of saltpeter appeared in
Novum Organum,
published in 1620. A 2000 version of Bacon’s work, edited and translated by Peter Urback and John Gibson, is available from
Open Court Publishing (Chicago).

By the graces of a kind of magic never imagined by the likes of Drebbel and King James I,
Daemonologie,
originally published in 1597, is available in full at http://watch.pair.com/daemon.html.

Carl Wieman’s quotation comparing a hailstorm to the use of lasers to slow molecular motion comes from a 2001 National Institute
of Standards and Technology news release titled “Bose-Einstein Condensate: A New Form of Matter,” available at
http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/BEC_background.htm
.

Erin Biba describes Lene Vestergaard Hau’s work in which a beam of light was stopped cold in her article “Harvard Physicist
Plays Magician with the Speed of Light” (October 23, 2007,
Wired,
www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/15-11/st_alphageek
).

MARCH

Among the many reasonably accessible discussions of frostbite is one by James O’Connell, Denise Petrella, and Richard Regan
called “Accidental Hypothermia and Frostbite: Cold-Related Conditions,” in
The Health Care of Homeless Persons — Part II — Accidental Hypothermia and Frostbite,
http://www.nhchc.org/Hypothermia.pdf
.

The word “angora” is also said to have come from the Turkish city Ankara. Its roots can be traced to the Greek
ankylos,
for “bend,” but perhaps because of its association with various animals, it came to mean “soft” in other languages.

Numerous Web sites provide summary descriptions about the processing of wool. Two examples are
http://www.oldandsold.com/articles04/textiles13.shtml
and
http://library.thinkquest.org/C004179/wool.htm
.

A more complete narrative describing World War II training intended to prepare troops for winter conditions in Japan can be
found in “The Wet-Cold Clothing Team,” published in the
Quartermaster Review
(January–February 1946), available at
http://www.qmmuseum.lee.army.mil/WWII/wet_cold.htm
.

There is no concise answer to the question “What is the best fabric for outdoor use in cold environments?” Different fabrics,
including the many different synthetic fabrics, have different characteristics. One fabric may be warmer than another in the
absence of wind but useless when the wind blows, another may be very warm until it traps moisture, and a third may be warm
but unable to withstand day-to-day use. Differences are further obscured by manufacturers’ claims, the absence of meaningful
standard tests of warmth and durability, and the propensity for retail clerks to present themselves as experts. Making an
informed choice about the best fabric for a parka or other winter clothing is as difficult as filing a federal tax return.
Having said that, Hal Weiss’s
Secrets of Warmth
(1992, CloudCap, Seattle) provides useful but dated guidance.

Thousands of patent descriptions can be found online by searching for patent numbers.

Although Vilhjalmur Stefansson’s classic work
The Friendly Arctic
(1921, Macmillan, New York) has not been reprinted recently, copies of various old editions are available. The entire book
also is available at
http://books.google.com/books?id=zTvyrKu8PjwC&printsec=toc&dq =the+friendly+arctic&source=gbs_summary_r&cad=0#PPP1,M1
.

Native American Niomi Panikpakuttuk’s description of clothing comes from a Northwest Territories Archives transcription of
a 1996 interview (document G93-009, Northwest Territories Department of Culture and Communications, Cultural Affairs Division,
Oral Traditions Contribution Program, Yellowknife, NT).

Major and minor misconceptions about the Arctic are common and extend well beyond igloos. For example, well-educated people
still believe that lemmings routinely form massive herds and march over cliffs.

Diamond Jenness’s
The Indians of Canada
(1932, University of Toronto Press, Toronto), which has been reprinted several times, is still considered an important resource
for understanding the history and culture of the native peoples of Canada. It includes chapters on hunting, dwellings, trade,
social organization, religion, and other aspects of life. Jenness was born in New Zealand but spent more than thirty years
trying to understand the native peoples of Canada before retiring in 1947.

For anyone passing through Fairbanks, the Cold Climate Housing Research Center is worth a visit. For information, see
http://www.cchrc.org/
.

APRIL

For more quotations that were misattributed to Twain, see
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/twain.asp
.

Robert Ettinger’s
The Prospect of Immortality
(1964, Doubleday, New York) was published in English, French, German, Dutch, Russian, and Italian. Who would not be intrigued
by the prospect of living forever, or at least longer than a natural life span? From the cover of the Doubleday English version:
“Most of us breathing now have a good chance of physical life after death — a sober, scientific probability of revival and
rejuvenation of our frozen bodies.”

The brownish pages of a mimeographed copy of the cryonics manual have been scanned and made available at
http://www.lifepact.com/mm/mrm000.htm
by Fred and Linda Chamberlain, life members of the Cryonics Institute. In their introductory page, the authors describe the
manual: “Notwithstanding this failure to ‘get off the ground,’ in the attempt to be comprehensive, a great number of topics
were addressed, at least in a preliminary way.” Although it may be easy to make light of cryonics, one can secretly hope that
the Chamberlains and other believers will have the last laugh.

Roald Amundsen’s
The South Pole: An Account of the Norwegian Expedition in the
Fram, 1910–1912 was republished by White Star Publishers (Vercelli, Italy) in 2007 as
Race to the South Pole.
Electronic versions of the original are available at books.google.com.

The quotation about potholes from the Washington State official came from “Recent Storms Leave Lasting Effects for Seattle
Drivers,” an article by Tiffany Wan in
The Daily of the University of Washington
(January 24, 2007). The quotation about potholes from a Michigan spokesman came from “Road Workers Scramble to Fix Winter’s
Damage,” an article by Andy Henion in the
Detroit News
(March 13, 2007).

According to the Smart Road Web site (
http://www.virginiadot.org/projects/constsal-smartrdoverview.asp
), a 5.7-mile stretch of the heavily engineered and instrumented Smart Road between Interstate 81 and Blacksburg, Virginia,
will eventually open to the public.

Earl Brown’s
Alcan Trailblazers: Alaska Highway’s Forgotten Heroes
(2005, Autumn Images, Fort Nelson, BC) is one of several books available on the history of the Alcan.
Alcan Trailblazers
relies in part on diary entries and letters written by construction workers. An interesting history with photographs can
be found at
http://web.mst.edu/~rogersda/umrcourses/ge342/Alcan%20Highway-revised.pdf
. An
American Experience
documentary, “Building the Alaska Highway” (PBS), also presents the history of the road.