The Gulf Stream is found not to explain Europe's mild winters
Seager and colleagues, writing in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, decomposed the surface heat budget of the North Atlantic and concluded that the winter temperature contrast between western Europe and eastern North America does not require a dynamical ocean at all. Southwesterly advection of maritime air into Europe and northwesterly advection of continental air into North America account for most of it, and most of the heat the ocean releases in winter is heat it stored in summer rather than heat a current brought from the south. The paper explicitly traces the older claim to Maury.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- Meridional Ocean Heat Transport · physical quantity · not located
- Gulf Stream · natural phenomenon · North Atlantic — Florida Straits to the Grand Banks
- Matthew Fontaine Maury · person · United States · not located
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent.
Is the Gulf Stream responsible for Europe's mild winters?
The winter temperature contrast between western Europe and eastern North America is principally caused by atmospheric advection and the seasonal release of stored ocean heat, not by heat convergence from the Gulf Stream; the older claim is traced to Maury. Read via search summaries of the paper and of later commentary; not fetched.
Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society · 2002 · Partly verified
Seager, R., Battisti, D. S., Yin, J., Gordon, N., Naik, N., Clement, A. C. and Cane, M. A., Q. J. R. Meteorol. Soc. 128, doi:10.1256/qj.01.128
Recorded on Meridional Ocean Heat Transport
- The Gulf Stream is charted to explain slow mail
- Maury issues the Wind and Current Chart of the North Atlantic
- The Brussels maritime conference standardises ocean observation
- The Physical Geography of the Sea is published
- The Gulf Stream is found not to explain Europe's mild winters
Related
Related because they share a subject in the Atlas — never because the text looks similar.