48 : The Atlantic 



This shows that the northeast trade wind system is not in fact con- 

 fined to a belt of latitude but that it tends to form itself into an arc 

 and in that arc the bend is to the right if your back is to the wind or 

 in a clockwise direction. The arc indeed is part of a complete though 

 sometimes weakly expressed circuit of winds for the trades do not sud- 

 denly come to an end in mid-Florida. Even north of Florida out at 

 sea there are prevailing easterly and southerly winds to speed a north- 

 bound vessel on her course. There is a weak spot around Hatteras 

 but above 40° north, say around the latitude of New York, the band 

 of the prevailing westerlies has begun. 



Just as the northeast trades begin off the African coast with winds 

 from the north rather than the northeast so the westerlies begin off 

 the American coast with winds from the southwest rather than west. 

 Moving east and then northeast a ship finds herself in the area 

 where the westerlies do prevail and this extends into the upper fifties, 

 say about the latitude of Scotland. 



The westerlies are real enough but they are not as regular and well 

 defined as the trade winds and the tendency to swing to the right is 

 not noticeable. There is a weak area of variable winds off the Bay of 

 Biscay but a little southward at Cape Finisterre the winds again are 

 from the north and northeast and are blowing down the line of the 

 Spanish and Portuguese coast. They have been called the Portuguese 

 trades and they feed directly into the northeast trades. In fact they 

 can hardly be distinguished from the northeast trades with which we 

 began our circuit of this part of the Atlantic. 



The area between the northeast trades and the westerlies contains 

 a permanent barometric "high" near the Azores and in general the 

 winds of this region are light, variable and disorganized. 



North of the westerlies there is again an area or belt of variable 

 winds and in summer even a strip with a fair proportion of easterly 

 winds. In the north the great land masses of the continents crowd 

 together and leave only the basin of the Polar Sea between them. 



The weather in the sub-Arctic and even in the Polar Sea (now 

 called the Arctic Mediterranean Sea) is greatly influenced by the 

 land areas and does not have an oceanic character. 



Until recently systematic information on Arctic weather has-been 

 scanty but is now accumulating rapidly. The huge Thule air base and 

 other air bases and stations are adding to this body of information. 

 In this connection it is interesting to remember that the establishment 

 of the Thule base involved the voyage, up and back, of a fleet of some 

 seventy ships. Flights over the Pole that a short while ago were 



