Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 — John Shaqi
Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898Various
Science
Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898
Various
Science -- Periodicals
Everyone knows full well the reason for this difference in the
climates of the two lands; the European coasts receive constant
supplies of water that has been warmed in southern latitudes and
carried northward in the great oceanic circulation and particularly in
the Gulf Stream. The west winds, blowing toward the European coast,
carry from this warm ocean belt air with higher temperature than that
which exists over the land. On the eastern side of the Atlantic in
place of a warm ocean current there is the cold Labrador current,
which blows from the north and chills the water of the northwestern
Atlantic. Therefore, the winds that come from the ocean blow over
water that has been cooled, and the prevailing winds, which are from
the west, come over the land, which is cool in winter and warm in
summer.
One may see these differences in climate and the causes for them even
more strikingly exhibited within the Arctic belt than in this case
which has been mentioned. The great land area of Greenland, with an
area of six or seven hundred thousand square miles, is a highland
capped over the greater part of its area with a snow field which
completely buries all the land excepting that near the margins. The
tongues from this ice field, whose area is some 500,000 square miles,
reach into the sea and furnish innumerable icebergs that float away,
chilling the waters. Notwithstanding the immense area of ice, the
summer climate of the Greenland coast is remarkably moderate, even as
far north as Melville Bay. The reason for this is the same as that
mentioned for the climatic peculiarities of Europe. A current from the
south, probably an eddy from the Gulf Stream, carries water northward
along the Greenland coast, thus raising the temperature so that the
ice which forms in the sea water and the bergs which float upon its
surface are made to disappear during the warm part of the year.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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