Atmospheric Currents

Abstract

A CONTROVERSY was recently waged in your columns as to the course which is pursued by the hot water-laden air of the equatorial regions in its journey to the poles. Both combatants seem to adopt what I may call the sheet-theory, which regards the winds as moving in sheets or strata, and gliding over and under each other at the polar and equatorial sides of the calms of Cancer and Capricorn, a process which would inevitably result either in both opposing winds being torn to tatters, or in their commixture and neutralisation. Surely the truth is that like all other moving fluids, this air will seek equilibrium in the direction of least resistance, and will carve out for itself wide channels in accordance with local conditions from the poles to the equator, and from the equator to the poles—channels which will not intersect or interfere with one another, except when affected by disturbing causes.