Left
Image: From the decks of sailing ships on voyages between America
and Europe, Benjamin Franklin recorded water temperatures, thus
becoming the first peson to document the existence of the Gulf Stream.
This map was the result of his observations. It is part of the Poupard
version of the Franklin-Folger Gulf Stream Chart printed in Maritime
Observations which Franklin published in 1786. |
Right Image: A
supercomputer generated model simulation of the North Atlantic.
The warm Gulf Stream is meandering between the colder slope waters
and the warmer Sargasso sea. This model was run at NASA's
JPL by Chao and Gangopadhyay in 1996. For the description of
the 1/6 degree primitive equation model results see "Modeling
the Gulf Stream System: How far from reality?" by Chao, Gangopadhyay,
Bryan and Holland, Geophysical Res. Letts., 23 (22), 3155-3158,
Nov, 1996.
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