562 



Basic Principles of the General Oceanic Circulation 



current branches of varying strength and of varying temperature. From Cape Hatteras 

 to the Irish coast its direction remains mainly eastwards or north-eastwards ; the average 

 velocity falls from 15 to 5 nautical miles in 24 h and its constancy from 70 to 30%. 

 The almost synoptic surveys of the International Gulf Stream Expedition of 1938 

 showed that the Gulf Stream to the north of the Azores is no longer a single current, 

 but is broken up into several branches flowing to the north-east as warm and highly 

 saline intrusions between cold, weakly saline water masses moving slowly in the 

 opposite direction. Neumann (1940) has shown that this finger-like ineraction of 



38° W 



36° 



32° 



26" 



48° 



48» 



46° 



/ 



•7 





.44' 



fe 



f.m 



]■ 



/ 





<^ 



42° 



^^ 



Z 



^ 







Jl. 



/ 



t^=^ S^::^ 



40" 



^'^ 



:^ 



^ 



i:^ 





y 



42° 





f -^ rr\rM-P.S „ . ^-^ 



^^ 



F\^ 



> 



r 



40° 



olOO J 



Azores 



o^ ^ 



38° 



36< 



38° yy 36° 



28° 



Fig. 257. Most probable course of the Gulf Stream north of the Azores in June 1938. 

 (The open arrows indicate the assumed position of the cores of individual branches of 



Gulf Stream.) 



