Page:Physical Geography of the Sea and its Meteorology.djvu/80

54 of the Observatory is so arranged that the circulation of the atmosphere through it is led from this basement room, where the pipes are, to all other parts of the building; and in the process of this circulation, the warmth conveyed by the water to the basement is taken thence by the air and distributed over all the rooms. Now, to compare small things with great, we have, in the warm waters which are contained in the Gulf of Mexico, just such a heating apparatus for Great Britain, the North Atlantic, and Western Europe.

151. An analogy showing how the Gulf Stream raises temperature in Europe.—The furnace is the torrid zone; the Mexican Gulf and Caribbean Sea are the caldrons; the Gulf Stream is the conducting pipe. From the Grand Banks of Newfoundland to the shores of Europe is the basement—the hot-air chamber—in which this pipe is flared out so as to present a large cooling surface. Here the circulation of the atmosphere is arranged by nature; it is from west to east; consequently it is such that the warmth thus conveyed into this warm-air chamber of mid-ocean is taken up by the genial west winds, and dispensed, in the most benign manner, throughout Great Britain and the west of Europe. The mean temperature of the water-heated air-chamber of the Observatory is about 90°. The maximum temperature of the Gulf Stream is 86°, or about 9° above the ocean temperature due the latitude. Increasing its latitude 10°, it loses but 2° of temperature; and, after having run three thousand miles towards the north, it still preserves, even in winter, the heat of summer. With this temperature it crosses the 40th degree of north latitude, and there, overflowing its liquid banks, it spreads itself out for thousands of square leagues over the cold waters around, covering the ocean with a mantle of warmth that serves so much to mitigate in Europe the rigours of winter. Moving now more slowly, but dispensing its genial influences more freely, it finally meets the British Islands. By these it is divided (Plate IX.), one part going into the polar basin of Spitzbergen, the other entering the Bay of Biscay, but each with a warmth considerably above the ocean temperature. Such an immense volume of heated water cannot fail to carry with it beyond the seas a mild and moist atmosphere. And this it is which so much softens climate there.

152. Depth and temperature.—We know not, except approximately in a few places, what the depth of the under temperature