156 THE OCEAN RIVER 



polar front, the conflict between heavy cold arctic air and 

 the warmer moist air from the southwest which rides against 

 it where the polar-front cell touches that of the middle lati- 

 tudes. The same great turbulence takes place in the ocean 

 where warm and cold waters meet to the south of Labrador 

 and in the oceanic polar fronts of the Icelandic and Barents 

 seas. 



The ocean acts as a brake on the perpetual battle between 

 areas of pressure, because the ocean stores more heat and 

 releases it more gradually than the earth. For this reason the 

 most stimulating and livable areas develop around the seaways 

 of the world and breed the healthiest and most energetic 

 civilizations. It is this beneficent and energizing machinery 

 of air and Ocean River that accounts for the rapid develop- 

 ment of the second phase of western Christian civilization 

 as an Atlantic community. But there is another characteristic 

 of the climate engine over the northern hemisphere and in 

 particular over the Ocean River, and this is the domination of 

 the polar front in making our weather. Here is the continually 

 shifting battle of the low-pressure areas of the roaring forties 

 and the wall of cold air settling from the north at 60° latitude, 

 and here the cold and drier polar winds meet with the warm 

 moist southwest winds. Wedges of cold air along the polar 

 front push into the low-pressure air and force it to higher 

 levels, where cooling causes it to condense into cloud and 

 give us rain, winter snow and powerful winds. This is the 

 reason the North Atlantic is one of the stormiest and rough- 

 est bodies of water in the world. 



As any weather map will show, there are succeeding waves 

 of high pressure bellying down from Canada and the Arctic, 

 interspersed with low-pressure cyclonic storm areas. The quan- 

 tity and the movement of this great permanent mass of arctic 

 air as it pushes down on the temperate zone is today presumed 

 to be the key to short-term and particularly long-term weather 



