NO. 4 TEMPERATURE VARIATIONS IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC 35 



Along- with Dickson's stvidies on the distrihution of tempera- 

 ture and salt contents of the surface of the Xorth Atlantic, one 

 must classify the later investigations of the same kind made by J. 

 Donald Mathews { 1907) for the years 1904 and 1905, and also 

 the international investig'ations which appear in the hydrographic 

 bulletins published by the International Bureau in Copenhagen for 

 the years after 1905. 



Of interest from our standpoint is Prof. Gerhard Schott's treatise 

 entitled " The Great Ice Drift by the Banks of Newfoundland and 

 the Heat Distribution of the Ocean Water in the Year 1903 " (1904) 

 which was published two months after Meinardus' above-mentioned 

 work on the variations of the North Atlantic circulation, in the 

 same Journal (Ann. d. Hydr. und Mar. Meteor). Schott comes 

 to the conclusion that the uncommonly great quantity of icebergs 

 on the Newfoundland Bank in the spring of i(p3 from March to 

 July, and the generally low surface temperatures in the xA.tlantic 

 Ocean (which according to his view was particularly great in the 

 eastern part in the spring) were prinicpally to be ascribed to the 

 variations in the intensity of the Gulf Stream and the Labrador 

 Stream. He accounts for it in this way : that the increase of the 

 velocity of the Gulf Stream must intensify the Labrador Stream, 

 whereby the ice drift is intensified. The variation of the surface 

 temperature of the ocean should be principally dependent, not upon 

 the cooling" action of the ice, but upon the extension of the cold 

 water-masses which the intensified Labrador Stream brings dowm. 

 The melting ice plays a negligible role in the great ocean and can 

 have only local influence upon the cooling of it. For example, it is 

 not to be supposed that " any direct action upon the temperature 

 of western Europe can be produced thereby." W'e conclude, fur- 

 ther, that the ice is not the cause but only a consequence or accom- 

 paniment of abnormal heat conditions and ocean current changes." 



Schott. in agreement with Meinardus. attributed as the primary 

 cause of the observed variations in the intensity of the ocean cur- 

 rents the winds depending upon the distribution of atmospheric 

 pressure. 



In the discussion of the surface temperatures recorded in ship 

 log-books, and assembled for the ditterent 1° fields of the ocean. 

 Schott came to the conclusion that '' the Gulf Stream made a very 

 marked protrusion to the east in the spring of the year 1903 up to 

 the middle of the ocean, with an accompanying increase of its heat 

 and its velocity. This protrusion led on its part to an increase of 

 the intensity of the cold Labrador current." 



