NATURE, MARKETS AND STATE RESPONSE: THE DROUGHT OF 1939 IN JAPAN AND KOREA
Large areas of Northeast Asia experienced drought in 1939. Agricultural production in Korea decreased significantly, but the drought did not cause famine in Japan despite its dependence on rice imports from Korea. The paper analyses the impact of the 1939 drought on the markets for rice and electricity in Japan. The authorities were ill-prepared for such a disaster but willing to use it for the purpose of covering for other problems. The drought thus accelerated the move of Japan's economic system towards a managed economy. A lower total rainfall in Japan in 1940 did not generate similar problems, suggesting that the broader political, economic, and social context is crucial to the identification of short-term climatic fluctuations as crises.
Two minima of the average rainfall at about the turn of the century and at about 1940 in the Far East
Secular changes as revealed by the readings of the river gauge at Hankow, China; rainfall records at Seoul since 1770 and annual totals of rainfall at six representative weather stations in Japan show two pronounced minima of the average rainfall at about the turn of this century and at about 1940. Thus this variation in rainfall was paralleled in the Far East, and it seems to have been of world-wide extent. Recent gradual increase of annual precipitation is really of great practical value for economical life in the Far East.
Geologic proof on paleo-glaciation remains in Laoshan Mountain
Laoshan Mountain is the highest mountain in China coast.Various typical geomorphic features of glarosion,glacial deposition,rare glacial moraine coast and glacial moraine fans in east are well developed in Laoshan Mountain.Well preserved four glacial epochs are identified in Laoshan Mountain.In early Pleistocene,the altitude of snowline ranged from 60 m to 90 m in east.More than sixty paleo-glacial tongues were developed in Laoshan Mountain,some of them which located in east extended into the Yellow Sea.Sporopollen analysis indicates that the climate in Laoshan Mountain is very cold during the ice age.Multi-modal grain-size probability curves of the moraines are the typical characteristics of sediments deposited by glaciation.Regional landforms and climatic conditions are the key factors dominating the altitude of snowline during the ice age.