The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1879-12-31
A Marine Clew to the Anomalous
European Weather.


A Marine Clew to the Anomalous
European Weather.
The thermal observations of Atlantic
water taken by the Cunard steamships are
beginning TO bear fruit and yield most in
teresting results for science. AS the At
lantic temperatures dominantly affect the
climate of Western Europe an examination
of the recorded temperatures of its surface
water has been eagerly made to ascertain
some clew to the long wet, cold and stormy
winter of last year. The observations
made on the temperature of the sea every
four hours by Captain Watson, of the
steamship Algeria, show that for the home
ward and outward bound passages that
part of the Atlantic traversed by his ship
was 8. 2 degrees warmer in December, 1878,
than in December. 1877 Paradoxical as it
may seem the mean temperature of the
British Islands in December, 1878, was de-
grees colder than in the last month of 1877.
But Captain Watson's records nevertheless
afford highly plausible solution of the
anomalous cold in Europe.
The heat brought by the Gulf Stream into
the North Atlantic has been fairly esti-
mated as not less than one-ffth of the
whole heat possessed by the surface water
of that ocean. About four billions Of cubic
feet of warm water is hourly poured
through the Florida Pass, giving out to the
dir of the North Atlantic the heat CORE
spending to difference in temperature of
Is degrees. When this volume Of water is,
in any season, augmented or its tempera-
ture raised but two or three degrees above
its normal condition, the resulting in
fuence upon the weather of Western Europe
must be marked. But if, as Captain Watson's
thermometric data apparently demonstrate,
the vast body of the North Atlantic south
of As degrees north has the temperature of
its surface water elevated three degrees
above the normal heat, the most decided
climatic effects would result. Fortunately
we have the means of verifying Captain
Watson's register. The Signal Service OBJ
servations of the sea water at seven
points on the South Atlantic and Gulf
coasts of the United States show that
it had on excess Of mean temperature of
1.42 degrees in December, 1873. over that
of the previous December. The Atlantic
water between the twenty-ffth and forty.
fifth parallels was, therefore, in the winter
of 1889 undergoing unusually great
evaporation. and the vast volume of mois-
ture then set free, borne in the broad belt
of the westerly or ''anti-trade" winds, was
spread out in a continuous stream to South
ern and Central Europe, serving not only
as natural highway for Atlantic storms to
travel thitherward, but also us fuel to feed
the cyclonic meteors as they broke on the
British and French coasts. As Mr. Lockyer,
| the English physicist, forcibly surmises in
his journal Nature, on the 18th inst ''This
| abnormal distribution of temperature in
| the Atlantic was more or less Immediately
connected with the more southerly course
taken by our European storms since the
| end of October, 1878, from which have i'm
| evitably resulted the unusual prevalence of
easterly and northerly winds and the cold
weather we have had since"-a statement
which, by the way, powerfully confirms
what the HERALD has SO long contended for,
that Atlantic storms do move toward and
strike upon the European coasts, and hence
that their movements are not without the
| limits of scientific prediction.
These observations of the sea water over
the North Atlantic basin will, as Mr.. Lock-
yer points out, serve as basis for "some-
thing more than mere guess of the
weather Of coming seasons" BY comparing
the sea water thermal observations made by
the Signal Service last month on the Gulf
and South Atlantic coasts, ns given in its
'Monthly Review" the great tropical res
ervor Of the Gulf Stream was then 90 de-
grees warmer than it was in Novem-
Der, 1873 As far back as May last
| the United States steamer Portsmouth's
observations showed an unusually vigor-
Gus movement of the Gulf Stream, that
ship having been carried northwardly
during calm ffty-six piles in fourteen
hours by the powerful flow of tropical water.
We might, therefore, justly infer that the
pressure of the southeast trades has, for a
considerable time, been exceptionally
great, driving an unusually large mass of
equatorial water into the Gulf Of Mexico
and through the Florida Pass into the
North Atlantic basin. If this process goes
on the European winter Of last year may re-
| reat itself in 1880. as Il has apparently al