Europe Is Warmer Than Canada Because of the Gulf Stream, Right? Not So Fast

Take a gander at this map, and you ’ ll see the red line marking the fiftieth parallel, a line of equal latitude that runs a broad circle around the Earth. Every point on this line is the same distance from the equator, and the lapp from the frigid pole. And yet the weather on the leftover side of the map, in the canadian state of Newfoundland and Labrador, is vastly unlike from the right, in the United Kingdom. Winter temperatures in Ireland, says Scientific American, are about 36 F warmer than they are in Newfoundland .
To make sense of this disparity, the common tale—the one bandied around for more than a hundred years—goes something like this : strong urine flowing to the northeast out of the Gulf of Mexico— the Gulf Stream —cuts across the North Atlantic ocean, bringing extra energy to the Isles and driving up temperatures relative to the comparatively-frigid North Americas. The lone problem with this elementary explanation, say Stephen Riser and Susan Lozier in Scientific American, is that it doesn ’ t actually account for the remainder .

In the nineteenth hundred geographer and oceanographer Matthew Fontaine Maury was the first to attribute the relatively meek climate of northwestern Europe to the Gulf Stream .
… Maury surmised that the Gulf Stream supplies heat to the overlying westerly winds that move across the Atlantic toward northwestern Europe. He besides speculated that if the Gulf Stream were somehow diminished in strength, the winter winds would be a lot cold and that Europe would experience Arctic-style winters. Over the years Maury ’ s mind became about axiomatic—and until recently, it besides remained largely unseasoned.

Reading: Europe Is Warmer Than Canada Because of the Gulf Stream, Right? Not So Fast

In climate model studies where the Gulf Stream was artificially swept out of being, the temperature differences between easterly Canada and western Europe persisted .

so what ’ s truly going on ? According to Riser and Lozier, the campaign of the temperature deviation is probably a complex interaction between the open ocean, the Gulf Stream, massive upper atmospheric currents and differences in pressure on either side of the Atlantic .
But the other, more interesting side of the history, is the narrative of the Gulf Stream explanation. Where did it come from, and how did it hold up for so long ?
After Matthew Fontaine Maury came up with his idea, posits scientist and blogger Chris Rowan, the explanation went on to become, in kernel, a scientific “ urban myth. ”

According to Seager, the notion that the Gulf Stream was warming Europe can be traced back to a book first published in 1855, and is “ the climatological equivalent of an urban legend ”. It is surely persistent enough, although given that this especial “ fact ” has been promulgated not by a acquaintance ’ s sibling ’ randomness cousin ’ mho ally over a pint on a Friday evening, but by scientists and educators in newspapers, televison programmes and lectures, it ’ south arguably even more baneful. But how did this happen ? Isn ’ triiodothyronine skill meant to be self-correcting ?

By the intricacies of scientific publication, a speculation put forth in one research newspaper can, through time, become unintentionally morphed into a statement of fact through the peer-reviewed equivalent of the game “ telephone : ”

here ’ s how it can happen. In the introduction to your average paper, you ’ ll often see sentences along the lines of :
The link between and has long been known ( Bloggs, 1996 ).

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The deduction is that everyone knows and accepts this, so it ’ s not worth wasting time going through the attest in painstaking detail ; but if you ’ ra interested, you can look up the given reference for the bloodstained details. Most of the time, this is precisely what you get when you track the given reference down ; but sometimes, you find that it is nothing more than the oldest mention to this fact that the original paper ’ s generator was willing or able to look up, and all it says is :
There is firm evidence that and are linked ( Obscuro, 1982 ) .
If you persist far, you may find yourself going through the process of looking up a mention, merely to be directed to an even earlier one, several more times before you last reach the basic text file, the one that contains actual data and discussion. And this is what you find :

Based on collected using and assuming, we conclude causes .

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