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Nitpick: That heat ferried by the gulf stream is what warns the Baltic is a quasi-religious supposition from the father of oceanography. The thermal ballast of
by jpxxx 14y ago
Nitpick: That heat ferried by the gulf stream is what warns the Baltic is a quasi-religious supposition from the father of oceanography. The thermal ballast of the Atlantic ocean that develops in the summer is primarily responsible for most of Europe's uncommonly warm winters.
- vacri 14y agoThe Baltic isn't all that warm either - half of it freezes over in winter.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- davedx 14y ago"On the long-term average, the Baltic Sea is ice-covered for about 45% of its surface area at the maximum annually. The ice-covered area during such a typical winter includes the Gulf of Bothnia, the Gulf of Finland, Gulf of Riga, Väinameri in the Estonian archipelago, the Stockholm archipelago and the Archipelago Sea." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Sea http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Sea
- nosse 14y agoBaltic sea is much less salty than ocean. And there are less waves to keep the water moving. Both help a lot to get some ice-fishing conditions.
- nosse 14y agoI'm from small town called Liminka, it's next to Oulu in Finland. The sea freezes in the winter but that doesn't keep Liminka from being a legendary farming area because of high crop yield. It's just warm enough to have good crops in the summer. The crops are of course not nearly as good as in Germany, but you cant find similar area from the same latitude in Russia or Canada. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/Liminka.sijainti.suomi.2008.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/Liminka....
- vacri 14y agoI don't question that cereals are grown there, but I do question the hypothesis that the gulf stream is responsible for making cereals viable via warming the Baltic. The author may be spot on with his cereal theory, but I'm not convinced by the suggested mechanism. The nascent fluid dynamicist in me doesn't see how a sea with only one tight opening can exchange enough water for a significant thermal exchange, one which would have to be pretty sizeable given the freezing. I could be wrong, but I do note that the 'gulf stream' graphic barely gets past Newfoundland, let alone showing the North Sea or the Baltic...
- rapala 14y agoFor what I know, the gulf stream is not warming the Baltic ocean. It brings warmer water to the cost of Norway, which creates warmer weather in the northern Europe.
- nosse 14y agoI can't really say that I would have deep knowledge of this stuff. I do know however that Golf current does not come to the Baltic sea. It cannot, as it would just rise to water-level, no way to run through. But usually wind and weather comes from west. So as golf current warms up the coast of Norway, some of that warmth comes here. It's a weather pattern, but I don't seem to find a good picture now, sorry. http://www.weatherwise.org/sebin/x/a/russian-inferno-photo6.jpg http://www.weatherwise.org/sebin/x/a/russian-inferno-photo6.... I remember from geography class that we are in this climate zone and it's called a Hadley cell. And inside that cell air circulates, but it cannot really break away. So kind of Golf course breaks into that cell from below. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadley_cell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadley_cell EDIT: sorry, lost in translation, I meant a Ferrel cell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_circulation#Ferrel_cell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_circulation#Ferrel_... Ans that's not very accurate as Finland seems to be in polar front.
- Retric 14y agoI am sure it's a balance of many forces; for example freezing an ocean releases a lot of energy so that in and of it's self would keep the area warmer than it would otherwise be.
- spindritf 14y ago> half of it freezes over in winter. Nowadays only gulfs properly freeze in winter but there are reports from XV century of people travelling over the ice in sleighs and even tales of inns being built on the ice. That was a little anomalous due to the Little Ace Age but even in the XX century ice floe would cover over 90% of the Sea once in a while.
- kahawe 14y ago> tales of inns being built on the ice Do you have any sources or links for this? This sounds really interesting, I want to read up on it!
- jessriedel 14y agoThe Baltic clearly has anomalous high temperatures for it's latitude. http://montessorimuddle.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Annual_Average_Temperature_Map-art.jpg http://montessorimuddle.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Annua...
- nosse 14y agoSources please? I live in Finland and find that very hard to believe. EDIT: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/Sea_ice.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/Sea_ice....
- bjelkeman-again 14y agoReading a little bit about the the recent work on the gulf stream and the effect on the climat shows that the interaction is probably much more complex than thought earlier. An interesting paper (PDF) on the subject is : Rhines, P.B.; Häkkinen, S. (September 2003). "Is the Oceanic Heat Transport in the North Atlantic Irrelevant to the Climate in Europe?". ASOF Newsletter. http://www.realclimate.org/Rhines_hakkinen_2003.pdf http://www.realclimate.org/Rhines_hakkinen_2003.pdf