Intensive Study Of Gulf Stream

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30809, 22 July 1965, Page 13

Intensive Study Of Gulf Stream

(N Z.P.i 4. -Reuter) WASHINGTON. The Gulf Stream, which greatly influences north-western Europe’s weather and fish migration, will be the object of an intense one-year study by United States scientists, beginning about July 15. The stream starts at the Florida Straits like a mighty river, 40 miles wide and 2000 ft deep. It meanders north, off the North American coast, until it reaches Newfoundland, and then veers off towards Europe. Somewhere in the North Atlantic, it divides. One branch goes north, past Scandinavia, while other branches turn south past the Iberian Peninsula and Africa

until they make a complete circuit of the North Atlantic and reunite with the stream near the Bahamas. Its waters, which reach temperatures of 80 degrees at the source, make the average January temperature in Norway 45 degrees Fahrenheit, higher than the normal temperature for that latitude. This is because the air is warmed as it passes over the stream, blowing to the coast of Europe. Without the Gulf Stream, Scandinavia might be as bleak and inhospitable as south-eastern Greenland, and Ireland might be like Labrador. All are in the same latitude. Little Known Although the Gulf Stream has been studied for nearly 200 years, probably not much more is known about it today than about outer space, according to Dr. Harris Stewart, Jun., chief oceanographer of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, who is in charge of the new investigations. It is now generally believed

that the Gulf Stream originates from a combination of forces: heat from the sun, the rotation of the earth, and the winds, created by a combination of these. Some idea of its size can be gathered from an estimate that in each hour it carries 22 times as much water into the sea as ail the water discharged by all the rivers of the world in a similar period. The Coast and Geodetic Survey will station two ships off the United States coast in mid-July. These will take measurements of cross sections of the stream, and trace the so-called "meanders,” or great loops, which change position. “The Gulf Stream must be clearly understood so that its role can be evaluated in weather modification, fisheries utilisation and commerce,” says Dr. Stewart. Fish and Stream “It is really hard to say what the benefits of the study will be. We hope that from knowing something. for instance, about the relation of fish to the environment of

the stream, we may be able to approach fish farming rather than fish hunting.” Asked about possible weather modification schemes, such as the speculative plan during the Second World War to freeze out Hitler's troops on the Continent by changing the course of the Gulf Stream, Dr. Stewart said that such a notion belonged to the sphere of science fiction. “Diverting the Gulf Stream would be like putting up a 10-foot-long fence on a prairie to contain all the antelope,” he said. “Even if it were feasible to do so, and the engineering problems and costs would be staggering it would probably not alter Europe’s weather, for the water would end up in the Atlantic somewhere in the path of the winds which affect the Continent’s weather. The United States study will concentrate on the Gulf Stream from its origin at the Florida Straits to Cape Hatteras, and on out into the North Atlantic near Bermuda.