paragraph_text: Tropical and equatorial air masses are hot as they develop over lower latitudes. Those that develop over land (continental) are drier and hotter than those that develop over oceans, and travel poleward on the western periphery of the subtropical ridge. Maritime tropical air masses are sometimes referred to as trade air masses. Monsoon air masses are moist and unstable. Superior air masses are dry, and rarely reach the ground. They normally reside over maritime tropical air masses, forming a warmer and drier layer over the more moderate moist air mass below, forming what is known as a trade wind inversion over the maritime tropical air mass. Continental Polar air masses (cP) are air masses that are cold and dry due to their continental source region. Continental polar air masses that affect North America form over interior Canada. Continental Tropical air masses (cT) are a type of tropical air produced by the subtropical ridge over large areas of land and typically originate from low - latitude deserts such as the Sahara Desert in northern Africa, which is the major source of these air masses. Other less important sources producing cT air masses are the Arabian Peninsula, the central arid / semi-arid part of Australia and deserts lying in the Southwestern United States. Continental tropical air masses are extremely hot and dry.

paragraph_text: Horteriset Dome () is a broad ice covered hill about west of the southern part of the Weyprecht Mountains in Queen Maud Land, Antarctica. First photographed from the air by the Third German Antarctic Expedition (1938–39), it was mapped by Norwegian cartographers from surveys and air photos by the Sixth Norwegian Antarctic Expedition (1956–60) and named by them.

paragraph_text: Mount Kropotkin is a peak on the west side of Jøkulkyrkja Mountain in the Mühlig-Hofmann Mountains of Queen Maud Land, Antarctica. It was mapped by the Norsk Polarinstitutt from surveys and air photos by the Sixth Norwegian Antarctic Expedition, 1956–60. The peak was also mapped by the Soviet Antarctic Expedition in 1961 and named for Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin.

paragraph_text: Mount Lacey () is a high, pyramidal, brown rock mountain with two sharp peaks, standing west of Mount Béchervaise in the Athos Range, Prince Charles Mountains, Antarctica. It was first sighted by an Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions party led by John Béchervaise in November 1955 and plotted by R.H. Lacey, a surveyor at Mawson Station in 1955, for whom it is named.

paragraph_text: The Hoel Mountains are a group of mountains including the Weyprecht Mountains and the Payer Mountains in Queen Maud Land, Antarctica. They were first photographed from the air and plotted by the Third German Antarctic Expedition (1938–39), mapped by Norwegian cartographers from surveys and air photos by the Sixth Norwegian Antarctic Expedition (1956–60) and named for Adolf Hoel, a Norwegian geologist and Arctic explorer, leader and member of many expeditions to Greenland and Spitsbergen since 1907.

paragraph_text: The main mineral resource known on the continent is coal. It was first recorded near the Beardmore Glacier by Frank Wild on the Nimrod Expedition, and now low-grade coal is known across many parts of the Transantarctic Mountains. The Prince Charles Mountains contain significant deposits of iron ore. The most valuable resources of Antarctica lie offshore, namely the oil and natural gas fields found in the Ross Sea in 1973. Exploitation of all mineral resources is banned until 2048 by the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty.

paragraph_text: Kruber Rock () is a lone rock lying west-northwest of the summit of Mount Flånuten on the west side of the Humboldt Mountains, in Queen Maud Land, Antarctica. It was discovered and plotted from air photos by the Third German Antarctic Expedition, 1938–39, and mapped from air photos and surveys by the Sixth Norwegian Antarctic Expedition, 1956–60. The rock was remapped by the Soviet Antarctic Expedition, 1960–61, and named after Soviet geographer Alexander Kruber.

paragraph_text: During the mid-Eocene, it is believed that the drainage basin of the Amazon was split along the middle of the continent by the Purus Arch. Water on the eastern side flowed toward the Atlantic, while to the west water flowed toward the Pacific across the Amazonas Basin. As the Andes Mountains rose, however, a large basin was created that enclosed a lake; now known as the Solimões Basin. Within the last 5–10 million years, this accumulating water broke through the Purus Arch, joining the easterly flow toward the Atlantic.

paragraph_text: The Esmeraldas River is a 210 kilometers (130 miles) river in northwestern Ecuador that flows into the Pacific Ocean at the city of Esmeraldas. Among its tributaries is the Guayllabamba River which drains Quito. Charles Marie de la Condamine sailed up it and then climbed the Andes Mountains when on the Ecuadorian Expedition that left France in May 1735.

paragraph_text: Pico Polaco is a mountain in the Cordillera de la Ramada range of the Andes Mountains of Argentina. It has a height of although some sources give

paragraph_text: Vasco da Gama's father was Estêvão da Gama, who had served in the 1460s as a knight of the household of Infante Ferdinand, Duke of Viseu. He rose in the ranks of the military Order of Santiago. Estêvão da Gama was appointed "alcaide-mór" (civil governor) of Sines in the 1460s, a post he held until 1478; after that he continued as a receiver of taxes and holder of the Order's commendas in the region.

paragraph_text: Although the centre and the eastern parts of the country are mostly flat, the west is mountainous. Both the Andes and Sierras Pampeanas affect the climate of Argentina, leading to differences in temperature, pressure, and spatial distribution of precipitation depending on the topography and altitude. Here, the Andes exert an important influence on the climate. Owing to the higher altitudes of the Andes north of 40 S, they completely block the normal westerly flow, preventing low pressure systems containing moisture from the Pacific Ocean from coming in. Thus, much of Argentina north of 40 S is dominated by wind circulation patterns from the South Atlantic High. South of 40 S, the Andes are lower in altitude, allowing much of Patagonia to be dominated by westerly winds and air masses from the Pacific Ocean. However, the north -- south orientation of the Andes creates a barrier for humid air masses originating from the Pacific Ocean. This is because they force these air masses upwards, cooling adiabactically. Most of the moisture is dropped on the Chilean side, causing abundant precipitation and cloudiness while on the Argentine side, the air warms adiabatically, causing it to become drier as it descends. Thus, an extensive rain -- shadow is present in much of Patagonia, causing it to receive very little precipitation. The Sierras Pampeanas influences the climate on a much smaller scale than the Andes.

paragraph_text: Michael D. Sullivan is the Senior Asia Correspondent for National Public Radio (NPR) based in Hanoi since 2003. Prior to that, Sullivan spent 6 years as the network's South Asia correspondent. Sullivan has received awards from the Overseas Press Club, South Asia Journalists Association, and, with Jennifer Ludden, Loren Jenkins, and Paul Glickman, won the 1998 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for international radio. Sullivan has been at NPR since 1985.

paragraph_text: Festninga Mountain is a broad, ice-topped mountain, high, standing west of Mount Hochlin at the west end of the Mühlig-Hofmann Mountains, in Queen Maud Land, Antarctica. it was mapped by Norwegian cartographers from surveys and air photos by the Sixth Norwegian Antarctic Expedition (1956–60) and named Festninga (the fortress). Austvollen Bluff forms the east side of the mountain.

paragraph_text: There is an average of forty - five inches of rain a year (fifty in the mountains). July storms account for much of this precipitation. As much as 15% of the rainfall during the warm season in the Carolinas can be attributed to tropical cyclones. Mountains usually see some snow in the fall and winter. Moist winds from the southwest drop an average of 80 inches (2,000 mm) of precipitation on the western side of the mountains, while the northeast - facing slopes average less than half that amount.

paragraph_text: The Portuguese Vasco da Gama, accompanied by Nicolau Coelho and Bartolomeu Dias, is the first European to reach India by an all - sea route from Europe.

paragraph_text: The Andes or Andean Mountains (Spanish: Cordillera de los Andes) are the longest continental mountain range in the world. They form a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. This range is about 7,000 km (4,300 mi) long, about 200 to 700 km (120 to 430 mi) wide (widest between 18 ° south and 20 ° south latitude), and of an average height of about 4,000 m (13,000 ft). The Andes extend from north to south through seven South American countries: Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina.

paragraph_text: The Havre Mountains () are a large group of mountains forming the northwestern extremity of Alexander Island, Antarctica, extending in an east–west direction between Cape Vostok and the Russian Gap. They were first seen in 1821 by a Russian expedition under Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and re-sighted by the Belgian Antarctic Expedition, 1897–99. They were roughly charted by the French Antarctic Expedition, 1908–10, under Jean-Baptiste Charcot, who named them for Le Havre, the French port from which the "Pourquol Pas?" sailed in 1908. The mountains were mapped in detail from air photos taken by the Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition, 1947–48, by D. Searle of the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey in 1960.

paragraph_text: Explorer James Clark Ross passed through what is now known as the Ross Sea and discovered Ross Island (both of which were named after him) in 1841. He sailed along a huge wall of ice that was later named the Ross Ice Shelf. Mount Erebus and Mount Terror are named after two ships from his expedition: HMS Erebus and Terror. Mercator Cooper landed in East Antarctica on 26 January 1853.During the Nimrod Expedition led by Ernest Shackleton in 1907, parties led by Edgeworth David became the first to climb Mount Erebus and to reach the South Magnetic Pole. Douglas Mawson, who assumed the leadership of the Magnetic Pole party on their perilous return, went on to lead several expeditions until retiring in 1931. In addition, Shackleton and three other members of his expedition made several firsts in December 1908 – February 1909: they were the first humans to traverse the Ross Ice Shelf, the first to traverse the Transantarctic Mountains (via the Beardmore Glacier), and the first to set foot on the South Polar Plateau. An expedition led by Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen from the ship Fram became the first to reach the geographic South Pole on 14 December 1911, using a route from the Bay of Whales and up the Axel Heiberg Glacier. One month later, the doomed Scott Expedition reached the pole.

paragraph_text: The Transantarctic Mountains (abbreviated TAM) comprise a mountain range of uplifted sedimentary rock in Antarctica which extend, with some interruptions, across the continent from Cape Adare in northern Victoria Land to Coats Land. These mountains divide East Antarctica and West Antarctica. They include a number of separately named mountain groups, which are often again subdivided into smaller ranges.

Question: Who fathered the leader of the first expedition to reach Hanoi's continent by sailing west across the source of the warm moist air mass over the Andes?
Answer: Estêvão da Gama