Modern Weather Reports and Forecasts
Simple yet accurate experiments and systematic observations have been conducted by the people for a long time, gradually supplemented, refined, supported, and passed down from generation to generation, helping people understand the world.
In the times of folk observers, there were not such significant changes in the environment as are occurring today due to industrial development, urbanization, chemicalization of agriculture, etc., particularly such as the destruction of the integrity of the ozone layer of the atmosphere, the consequences of nuclear and hydrogen bomb explosions in the atmosphere, high-altitude flights, and freon leaks from cans and refrigeration units — that is, everything that disrupts and destroys the natural ecological balance established over millennia, the natural regulation by the internal mechanisms of the biosphere.
It is known that ozone — a "relative" of oxygen (an ozone molecule consists of three oxygen atoms) — is found in large quantities in the stratosphere and, by absorbing ultraviolet solar radiation, protects all living organisms (flora and fauna) from it. The meteorological commission for the study of the Earth's climate, which convened in early January 1962 in Geneva, concluded that the amount of ozone in the atmosphere has sharply decreased in recent years. Recently, "ozone holes" have been discovered in the Antarctic region, equal in size to the territory of the USA. The main cause of the destruction of the ozone layer is the increased emissions of freons and chlorine compounds into the atmosphere in recent years, which actively "devour" ozone.
According to scientists, if the population growth on Earth, as well as the increase in industrial production and deforestation, continue at today's rates, then in the 21st century, the amount of ozone will decrease by 5-10 percent or more, which will lead to an increase in the Earth's temperature. The consequences of the destruction of the ozone layer are already affecting human health: in the resorts of Australia, New Zealand, and Haiti, the incidence of skin cancer has significantly increased after sunbathing, while North Americans are horrified at the prospect of a 10-centimeter rise in sea level in the next 25 years. All these circumstances prompted scientists to adopt the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer in March 1985; more than 50 countries signed protocols to freeze production and subsequently reduce the release of ozone-depleting substances at an international conference in Montreal in September 1987. They were joined by the countries of the European Economic Community (EEC). American scientists established at the end of May 1988 that the ozone layer has decreased by 6 percent or more over the past 10 years, and this process is accelerating.
The problem is so serious for all humanity that its solution cannot be delayed, and therefore scientists, politicians, and industrialists from 118 countries gathered again on March 5, 1989, in London to comprehensively discuss this issue.
Residents of industrial centers know that winter in cities arrives one to two weeks later than in the suburbs, while spring, naturally, comes earlier. The air temperature in the city center is 1-2 degrees higher than in the outskirts, and in spring, it is harder to clean the windows of an urban apartment than in a rural house. Air pollution in the city is two orders of magnitude higher than over the sea in Antarctica.
The outbreak of asthma, a sharp increase in heart attacks in Angarsk, children's baldness in Chernivtsi, mutant children with severe physiological deviations from the norm in Moscow — all of this is evidence of the increased concentration of exhaust gases, dust, and soot from thermal power plants, etc.
Each car emits about 600 kilograms of carbon monoxide and other toxic substances into the air each year. Exhaust gases contain about 200 toxic components.
In the Arctic and Antarctic, the atmosphere can no longer be called clean. Progressive urbanization is now capable of influencing the climate not only in specific areas but also on a planetary scale.
The Timeless Value of Folk Observations
Investigative commissions of the Bundestag of the Federal Republic of Germany and NASA specialist J. Hanmon, based on climatic data from recent years, concluded that the average temperature of the Earth will rise by 1.5-4.5 degrees Celsius in the next 50 years, and the ocean level will rise by 0.2-1.4 meters. The British Meteorological Office, based on daily air temperature measurements at 1800 points on the planet and data from specially equipped marine vessels, concluded that 1988 was the warmest year on the planet in the last 100 years. The average temperature on Earth last year was 0.34 degrees Celsius higher than the average thirty-year temperature from 1949 to 1979.
In January 1990, a global forum on environmental issues and nature conservation for survival took place in Moscow with the participation of more than a thousand representatives from all corners of the planet, including the UN Secretary-General Pérez de Cuéllar. This indicates that the health of the Earth has become the foremost problem for all people on the globe.
The concentration of industrial gases and aerosol impurities in the atmosphere is higher the larger the city. Here, the local "greenhouse effect" is intensified, although it is observed throughout the globe. It has been established that the content of carbon dioxide, ozone, aerosols (smoke, fog, dust, smog, etc.), and freons in the atmosphere significantly influences climate change.
The cycles of seasonal recurrence used to be constant because the natural phenomena occurring in the atmosphere were only related to the action of the Sun: monthly and annual precipitation norms and their seasonal repetitions did not change either. Predictions made based on long-term observations of natural phenomena were therefore most often confirmed, and this, in turn, helped people correctly understand and decipher the dialectics of causes and effects in nature.
In the age of satellite meteorology, some old notions about weather phenomena seem naive. Yet they are interesting to us not only as a monument to human thought, as something that entirely belonged to the past. The development and improvement of meteorological services have primarily progressed through the enhancement of instruments that account for the physical parameters of the environment.
In this process, direct observations were inevitably reduced, and less importance was given to factors of local significance.
Modern weather reports and forecasts are provided for relatively large areas, while a person is primarily interested in the weather at a specific point, in the place where they are currently located. Folk meteorology, based on the observations of known and unknown folk observers, can help determine the weather in a specific location. Their accurate observations of nature encourage us to be more observant and attentive to the natural world, to more deeply understand the world of animals and plants, and their ability to change behavior or state according to favorable or unfavorable weather phenomena. It should be noted that folk weather predictors based their forecasts not on divination and mystical rituals, but on real events in the surrounding environment, highlighting significant connections in nature predominantly in a naive-materialistic way. And therein lies the timeless value of many of their observations.