number of bergs calved and subsequently released from the fjords during 

 a given summer is so small that its progress as a concentration cannot be 

 followed, or (3) the initial concentration representing a year-class be- 

 comes dispersed so as not to be recognizable as a concentration. Since 

 the two censuses so far recorded showed different numbers of concen- 

 trations, it is considered that the travel time is not less than that indicated 

 by the census having the greater number of concentrations (1948). Thus 

 we arrive at a tentative value of not less than 3 years; and are required 

 to relate the shortages found in the 1940 census to one or more of the 

 three reducing factors enumerated above operating prior to 1940, and 

 to the small numbers of bergs arriving in the Grand Banks area during 

 the seasons of 1941 and 1942 (2 and 30 respectively). 



A single isolated census does not give sufficient information on which 

 to base a final conclusion. More positive indications of the length of 

 the usual travel time might be inferred, however, if the censuses were 

 repeated annually for at least three successive years. In addition, from 

 such a series it may be possible to establish a figure for the normal attri- 

 tion of bergs during their journey from their fjords to the Grand Banks, 

 and to obtain possible clues as to the causes of greater or less than normal 

 attrition. If practicable, therefore, the ice census of Baffin Bay will 

 be repeated during the ^summers of 1949 and 1950, after which the results 

 of the three surveys will be examined in greater details. 



WEATHER 



During the two previous postwar seasons the weather program of the 

 International Ice Patrol consisted of the surface vessel on patrol taking 

 three hourly synoiitic surface weather observations, upper air observations 

 which included rawins, radio-sondes and pibals, and their subsequent 

 transmission to the U. 8. Weather Bureau, Washington, D. C. In 1948 ; 

 an identical program was carried out where possible. Equipment and | 

 personnel curtailed the program on the USCGC Evergreen to the three 

 hourly synoptic sm^face weather observations. On the USCGC Macoma 

 equipment was the limiting factor and in addition to the three hourly 

 synoptic surface weather observations it was possible to take radio- 

 sonde observations. The Mendota was equipped and staffed to carry out 

 the full program. 



The importance of carrying out the full metei)r()k_)gical program of the 

 International Ice Patrol becomes immediat(4y apparent with the state- 

 ment that dui'ing 1946, 1947, and 1948, ocean weather station C, at 

 52°45' N., 35°30' W., was the closest ocean weather station to shore 

 stations along the western side of the North Atlantic. Although the 

 network of ocean weather stations in the North Atlantic contains station 

 D at 45°00' N., 45°00' W., at the close of the 1948 season this station was 

 still unoccupied. Tentative plans call for ocean weather station D to be 

 manned early in 1949 so that the weather progi'am of the International 



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