currents from source to termination is the transportation agency. 

 However, changes in oceanographic conditions are for the most part 

 originally due to atmospheric changes. At any rate, it is strongly 

 believed that the transporting agency bearing its freight of icebergs 

 may vary its speed and volume of flow from month to month, season 

 to season, and year to year, but its direction is forever south-seeking 

 and thus more stable and more constant in the effect on icebergs than 

 the ever-variable atmospheric conditions. Meteorological factors in 

 the area of origin of bergs have begun to mold the pattern of a Grand 

 Banks iceberg season before a so-called annual crop of bergs have 

 calved or been born and years prior to a particular ice season. The 

 climatology of the area where berg-producing glaciers are located from 

 year to year undoubtedly has a distinct effect on the glacier ice dis- 

 charged from year to year. The indirect effect of climatology in the 

 area on the timing of the breakup of the fast ice with subsequent 

 calving and release of bergs from the fiords and bays each summer 

 and the timing of the formation of fast ice and subsequent imprison- 

 ment of many bergs in the autumn of each year must be assumed to 

 be an important factor. The climatology along the entire route 

 traveled by the bergs is of considerable importance and believed of 

 critical importance along the southeastern Baffin Island coast, Labra- 

 dor coast, and eastern Newfoundland coast in the winter and spring 

 preceding and during a given ice season on the Grand Banks. It is 

 believed that the climatology of the areas above, especially selected 

 for the 5-6 months' period when inhabited by the berg crop as it 

 proceeds to the south, is most significant in controlling or altering 

 control of the movement and deterioration of the berg crop. This is 

 due to the direct influence of winds and temperature on the berg and 

 the indirect influence of modifying the current system and its water 

 temperatures. The bottom topography along the glacier to Grand 

 Banks berg routes is also an important factor. 



If only each berg that arrives on the Grand Banks could reveal 

 its past, each would have its own story to tell. Its age as an entity 

 or separate piece of drifting ice might vary from daj^s to years. It 

 may have spent months or years aground in various locations along 

 the coasts of West Greenland, Baffin Island, Labrador, and New- 

 foundland, or it may have spent little or no time aground. Most 

 bergs would admit to being born (calved) at the many glaciers near 

 Disko Bay, West Greenland. Many have origins from other larger 

 bergs long since born, and on rare occasions a berg may have traveled 

 from East Greenland. Actually those bergs that arrive at the Grand 

 Banks may be considered the select few, for it has been estimated 

 that only 1 of every 40 bergs calved in West Greenland makes it to 

 the Grand Banks. There is evidence that the majority perish in 

 Baffin Bay, the waters of their origin. Many others are trapped in 



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