92. What is the International Ice Patrol? 



The menace of icebergs to shipping was brought starl<ly to public 

 attention on April 14, 1912, when the "unsinkable" ship TITANIC 

 smashed into an iceberg off Newfoundland and sank with the loss of 

 1,500 lives. As a direct result of this tragedy, the International Ice 

 Patrol was established; since that time not a single life has been lost 

 through collision with icebergs in North Atlantic shipping lanes. 



Seventeen nations contribute to the funding of the Patrol, which is 

 conducted by aircraft and ships of the U. S. Coast Guard. Despite man's 



knowledge of icebergs, his best defense against them is still to track their 

 movements and broadcast warnings. Attempts to destroy icebergs by 

 firebombs, gunfire, and chemicals have all met with failure. 



Ice surveillance begins early in March when Coast Guard aircraft 

 begin flying from Argentia, Newfoundland, and continues through June 

 or July. The average number of icebergs drifting past Newfoundland 

 each year is 400, although the number varies from less than a dozen to 

 more than a thousand. 



Icebergs that break off from glaciers of the Greenland icecap are first 

 carried northward along west Greenland. They then turn westward and 

 are carried southward by the Labrador current. The average time 

 between breakoff and entry into the shipping lanes is 3 years. 



In order to understand the forces of nature that influence the drift 

 of icebergs, oceanographers of the Coast Guard make studies of the 

 origin of icebergs, yearly crop and drift patterns, currents, waves, and 

 meteorological factors. The Coast Guard is now using a computer 



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