the dance of air and sea This page intentionally left blank The Dance of Air and Sea ••• How Oceans, Weather, and Life Link Together arnold h. taylor 1 1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offi ces in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Arnold H. Taylor 2011 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2011 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc ISBN 978–0–19–956559–7 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 To my mother and father. This page intentionally left blank CONTENTS List of Illustrations ix Preface xiii 1 A 4000-mile plankton riddle 1 2 The ways of the ocean 23 3 At the behest of the weather 51 4 The snake in the mathematical grass 78 5 Every wind has its weather 103 6 The tangled skeins of the world’s weather 126 7 Action at a distance 144 8 Lighthouses on the shores of the climate 166 9 Drunken trees in the greenhouse 190 10 As the tempo of the dance heats up 218 Epilogue: Footprints from the dance 245 Endnotes 249 Glossary 269 Index 275 vii This page intentionally left blank LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 1.1 A climatic connection spanning the North Atlantic Ocean. 3 1.2 Franklin’s ocean temperatures. 5 1.3 Annual changes of some zooplankton populations in the North Sea compared with the position of the Gulf Stream. 11 1.4 Annual changes of two species of zooplankton in the North Sea compared with the position of the Gulf Stream. 11 2.1 The line made by a pen moving in a straight line over a rotating disc. 26 2.2 The trajectories of drifting derelicts between 1883 and 1902. ©Reprinted with permission from Elsevier. 30 2.3 The trajectories of freely drifting satellite-tracked buoys between 1971 and 1981. ©Reprinted with permission from Elsevier. 31 2.4 The current system of the North Atlantic showing the Gulf Stream running along the seaboard of the USA. 33 2.5 Latitude of the Gulf Stream from the BRS model. 39 2.6 A schematic representation of the ocean conveyor belt. 44 3.1 Summer zooplankton abundance in Lake Windermere compared with the latitude of the Gulf Stream. 57 3.2 Abundance of one common species on the roadside verge at Bibury compared with the latitude of the Gulf Stream. 72 4.1 Trading fi gures of the Hudson’s Bay Company. 79 4.2 Wave-heights at the Draupner oil platform in the North Sea on 1 January, 1995. 85 5.1 A summary of the world’s weather patterns. 112 ix