Mr. Tom's Blog

Der Golfstrom

August Pettermann published a beautiful chart of July 1870 sea-surface temperatures. I’ve attached it below. Copy it and blow it up. You’ll see he is fascinated by the Gulf Stream; he writes Golfstrom in several places, even far north in the Barents Sea. This is vivid testimony to the European fascination with the Gulf Stream and its role in their climate. This, of course, lives on today with our concerns with the state and health of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC). In Pettermann’s days they weren’t aware the distinction between the AMOC and the Gulf Stream, but today we know the Gulf Stream plays a dual role as a link in the AMOC and as the western boundary of the North Atlantic wind-driven circulation. The wind-driven part cannot shut down – the physics responsible for the westerlies and trade winds were active in glacial times as well. The AMOC may shut down, but not the Gulf Stream.

Golfstrom

Anyone who enjoys maps will revel in this one. First, it is a wonderful color print. Second, even though it is over 150 years old, it encompasses features we recognize today, the warm water flow into the NE Atlantic, the warm waters off the Norwegian coast and even past the west coast of Svalbard. There is even a hint of the Northwest Corner (where the warm water turns east near 55°N). He was convinced the Arctic was ice-free (once you got past the pack ice), and evidently argued for this his entire life. A curious detail is that he uses the Réaumur temperature scale where 0 and 80 represent the freezing and boiling points of water.

As a further expression of European fascination with the Gulf Stream you might find the following article interesting: https://web.uri.edu/gso/wp-content/uploads/sites/916/GS_commandeered-1-1.pdf. It’s a piece of Swedish science fiction. Published in 1910, the story starts in 1911.