THE GULF STREAM MYTH.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 27 June 1901, Page 4

THE GULF STREAM MYTH.

One by one our cherished ideas are being bowled over by dry-as-dust scientists. From our youth up we have all been thaught that the climate of the British Isles would be almost Arctic in its severity were it not for the perpetual washing of our shores by the warm water of the Gulf Stream. But science says, " Wrong again." In the North Atlantic and Mediterranean pilot chart for the month of May, issued by the Meteorological Council, there is abundance of information for sailors on several subjects, and in the remarks relating to currents it as stated that the .results, shown by means of numberless blue arrows on the chart, are derived from observations extending from 1830 to 1895. Based on the investigation of the immense quantity of date referred to it is now stated that to the westward of the British Isles between the 50th and 60th parallels the currents drift in the month of May largely to the west and southwest, there being no evidence of the north-eastward extension of the Gulf Stream beyond about 47deg. N., 27deg. W. Between the 30th and 50th parallels westward to the 30th meridian, nearly the whole of the surface water was a south-going movement. The Gulf Stream itself, weakening greatly on passing the Newfoundland Banks, is driven off, first to the southeast, then to the south, and so finally down to the tropics again. Our coasts are thus exposed to Arctic rather than to tropical influence, and to the Gulf Stream we owe no thanks apparently for the fact that we don't suffer the severities of a Labrador winter.