I came across a fascinating paper today on The Source of Europe’s Mild Climate (Richard Seagar, American Scientist magazine, July-August 2006). I was surprised to learn that the origin of the “Gulf Stream keeps Europe from freezing” myth was from an American Naval officer and oceanographer in 1855, and has no scientific merit.

I’ll spoil the punchline of the paper for you: atmospheric heat transfer from equitorial to polar regions is responsible for more temperature change in continental areas than oceanic heat transfer, and that only areas very close to oceans (and then, in the northern hemisphere, on the eastern seaboards of oceans) benefit from maritime heat transfer. Mountains and atmospheric convection are responsible for continental climates, and because of the conservation of angular momentum and the rotation of earth, rotating masses or cells of air will variously drift north or southward–the Rocky Mountains slow the spin of air, causing it to veer south where it picks up heat energy, spins faster, and drifts northward over the Atlantic to warm England and Northern Europe.

It’s well worth a read and is written for the layman, so it should be accessible to most everyone.