944 
Fridtjof Nansen Land area and the Canadian Arctic 
Archipelago. 
In the array of evidence supporting his ‘‘normal” 
pressure regime for the North Pole area, it appears that 
Hobbs would have done better to stress, rather than 
suppress, the fact that cyclonic storms have been en- 
countered in the Central Arctic Basin. He cited Dzerd- 
zeevskii as to the mean annual pressure of 1013 mb 
[10], but did not mention the frequent large fluctuations 
in pressure and temperature observed by the Soviet 
North Pole station before it drifted between northeast 
Greenland and Spitsbergen. Dzerdzeevskii noted cor- 
rectly that these changes, reaching as much as 40 mb 
in pressure and 29C in temperature, were associated 
with the passage of intense cyclonic disturbances, 
frontal systems, and different air masses. Furthermore, 
popular accounts of the Soviet expedition also mention 
the stormy conditions experienced while they were still 
close to the North Pole: ‘“‘North Pole, June 10th. There 
was a violent snow storm on the 8th and 9th ... the gusts 
of wind attained a speed of 60 feet per second (41 
m.p.h.)” [3], and on June 29th, ‘A savage north wind 
has been raging for more than twenty-four hours. .. . 
Rain has been pouring down...” [3]. 
During the last few years, cooperative action between 
the United States, Canada, and Denmark has resulted 
in the establishment of new meteorological stations in 
the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and northern Green- 
land. They are all in locations formerly visited only by 
explorers, and the annual resupply of each constitutes 
an undertaking comparable to that expended on an 
entire expedition of former years. As for the North Pole 
area, of which Hobbs has said, “For all time it is likely 
that meteorologists . . . will be unable to gain any 
knowledge of the weather of the Polar Basin” [9], 
meteorological reconnaissance flights have been made 
more often than twice weekly over the American sector 
of the arctic ice-fields by the U. 8. Air Weather Service 
through the last three years. Meteorologists have used 
the explorer’s hard-won observations and are adding 
daily increments to their knowledge of the arctic region. 
Where is the sharp contrast between concepts and 
methods of explorer-geographers and _ professional 
meteorologists investigating the Central Arctic Basin? 
RECENT IMPROVEMENTS IN ARCTIC 
OBSERVATIONAL DATA 
New Stations in Northern Arctic America. This region 
had long been a “blind spot”? on North American 
synoptic weather charts and was a logical focal point 
of meteorological planning when the end of World War 
II allowed consideration of necessary improvements in 
the existing observational network. Canada, the United 
States, and Denmark agreed upon the desirability of 
cooperative effort, and plans for several new stations 
were implemented in 1946. A joint Danish-U. S. 
Weather Bureau station was established and in full 
operation at Thule, Greenland, by October 1946. Air 
transportation was used in the spring of 1947 to install 
the second of the new stations, operated jointly by 
Canada and the United States, at the northern end of 
POLAR METEOROLOGY 
Eureka Sound, Ellesmere Island, Canada. Four addi- 
tional stations in the Arctic Archipelago are now main- 
tained by Canadian—United States cooperation, as fol- 
lows: Resolute Bay, southern Cornwallis Island, since 
October 1947; Mould Bay, Prince Patrick Island, and 
Isachsen Peninsula, Hllef Ringnes Island, by air lift 
since the spring of 1948; and Alert, Ellesmere Island, 
by air lift since the spring of 1950. Locations in Peary 
Land, Greenland, have been considered for a possible 
future station in this new net. 
The short period of record for these stations does not 
permit comprehensive statistical treatment of the new 
meteorological data, but the analysis of sea-level and 
upper-air charts over this region has become more ac- 
curate with each increment of observations. Further- 
more, the predominance of the arctic air mass is such 
that its local and seasonal characteristics have been 
approximately determined from a relatively short series 
of upper-air soundings. 
Weather Reconnaissance Flights. When the elimina- 
tion of the North American meteorological “blind spot” 
was being planned, the problem of obtaining weather 
information from the American sector of the arctic 
pack ice received considerable attention. The consoli- 
dated ice fields in the central portion of this area do not 
drift as rapidly as does the North Pole ice toward the 
Greenland Sea, so a drifting station might stay there 
for several years. It was finally agreed that weather 
reconnaissance flights would furnish a maximum of 
meteorological data at a relative mmimum of hazard 
for the personnel involved. In March 1947 the Air 
Weather Service was able to begin occasional recon- 
naissance flights near the 700-mb level over the region 
between Alaska and the North Pole. Two flights a week 
were planned for a trial period, but three or more flights 
a week near the 500-mb level were made at times during 
1948-49. 
Expedition Stations. A Danish expedition to north- 
east Greenland was in that area during 1948-49. Its 
main base, with radiosonde equipment, was located 
near the former Danmarkshavn. An outpost station, 
established and supplied by air lift, wintered at Bron- 
lunds Fjord in Peary Land to obtain the first cold- 
season scientific data from this part of Greenland. 
Observations from both these stations appeared in- 
termittently with the Greenland collective reports in 
1948-50. 
The arctic division of the French National Polar 
Expeditions, directed by Paul E. Victor, established an 
observatory on the Greenland Ice Cap in July 1949. 
A location (70°54’N, 40°42’W) approximating that of 
Wegener’s “‘Hismitte” at an elevation of about 3000 
m was selected in order to obtain data comparable with 
those [22] of the 1930-31 expedition. Ice-cap meteor- 
ology should be further clarified when these new data 
become available. 
ARCTIC CIRCULATION PATTERNS 
Average Monthly Sea-Level Pressure Charts. Con- 
sideration of the typical properties of arctic air should 
be facilitated by a prior knowledge of the large-scale air 
| 
MMe 
