Few people realize that a very large part of inhabited Europe lies to
the north of the latitude which in this country is considered the
limit of habitation, says Prof. Ralph S. Tarr, in The Independent.
London is situated in the same latitude as southern Labrador, where
the inhabitants are scattered in small villages and are mainly summer
residents who come there from the more southern lands to engage in
fishing. During the winter their ports are closed by ice and
navigation is stopped, while toward the British Isles steamers are
constantly plying from all directions. The great city of St.
Petersburg, which in winter is inaccessible to ships, but in summer
enjoys a moderate climate, lies in the same latitude as the northern
part of Labrador, where snow falls in every month of the year and
where floating ice frequently retards navigation even in midsummer. As
a result of the severity of climate the only people who find northern
Labrador a place fit for existence are the Eskimo tribes, who win
their living under great difficulties almost entirely from the sea. No
white men live there, with the exception of some missionaries and the
occasional traders.
Everyone knows full well the reason for this difference in the
climates of the two lands; the European coasts receive constant
supplies of water that has been warmed in southern latitudes and
carried northward in the great oceanic circulation and particularly in
the Gulf Stream. The west winds, blowing toward the European coast,
carry from this warm ocean belt air with higher temperature than that
which exists over the land. On the eastern side of the Atlantic in
place of a warm ocean current there is the cold Labrador current,
which blows from the north and chills the water of the northwestern
Atlantic. Therefore, the winds that come from the ocean blow over
water that has been cooled, and the prevailing winds, which are from
the west, come over the land, which is cool in winter and warm in
summer.
One may see these differences in climate and the causes for them even
more strikingly exhibited within the Arctic belt than in this case
which has been mentioned. The great land area of Greenland, with an
area of six or seven hundred thousand square miles, is a highland
capped over the greater part of its area with a snow field which
completely buries all the land excepting that near the margins. The
tongues from this ice field, whose area is some 500,000 square miles,
reach into the sea and furnish innumerable icebergs that float away,
chilling the waters. Notwithstanding the immense area of ice, the
summer climate of the Greenland coast is remarkably moderate, even as
far north as Melville Bay. The reason for this is the same as that
mentioned for the climatic peculiarities of Europe. A current from the
south, probably an eddy from the Gulf Stream, carries water northward
along the Greenland coast, thus raising the temperature so that the
ice which forms in the sea water and the bergs which float upon its
surface are made to disappear during the warm part of the year.
Sailing from the coast of Greenland at about the middle point, near
Disco Island, in the early part of September, one leaves a land with a
delightfully pleasant climate and warmth almost like that of the early
autumn of temperate latitudes, and proceeding south-westward across
Davis Straits to Baffin Land, two or three hundred miles southward,
there finds himself in the midst of the conditions of early winter.
The Greenland coast is not snow covered, plants are still in blossom
and the hum of insects is heard; but in this more southern latitude,
on the American side, the summer insects have entirely disappeared,
only a few belated flowers are seen in protected places and a thin
coat of snow covers all the land. Light snow may fall here during any
time of the summer; but in spite of these differences Baffin Land is
not ice covered, while Greenland is. The ice cap of the interior of
Greenland is present less because of the severity of the climate at
sea level than from the fact that the air which reaches this land has
become humid in crossing the water areas, and further in the fact that
the interior is a highland. On the Baffin Land side the interior is
less elevated and there is less water to the westward in the direction
from which the prevailing winds blow.
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