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The term originally derives from the early fourteenth century sense of trade (in late Middle English) still often meaning "path" or "track". [2] The Portuguese recognized the importance of the trade winds (then the volta do mar, meaning in Portuguese "turn of the sea" but also "return from the sea") in navigation in both the north and south Atlantic Ocean as early as the 15th century. [3]
The trade winds (also called trades) are the prevailing pattern of easterly surface winds found in the tropics near the Earth's equator, [4] equatorward of the subtropical ridge. These winds blow predominantly from the northeast in the Northern Hemisphere and from the southeast in the Southern Hemisphere. [5]
The westerlies (blue) and trade winds (yellow and brown) The general atmospheric circulation. Trade winds (red), westerlies (white) and the South Pacific anticyclone (blue) [1] The westerlies, anti-trades, [2] or prevailing westerlies, are prevailing winds from the west toward the east in the middle latitudes between 30 and 60 degrees latitude.
George Hadley (12 February 1685 – 28 June 1768) was an English lawyer and amateur meteorologist who proposed the atmospheric mechanism by which the trade winds are sustained, which is now named in his honour as Hadley circulation. As a key factor in ensuring that European sailing vessels reached North American shores, understanding the trade ...
Knowing the wind sampling average is important, as the value of a one-minute sustained wind is typically 14% greater than a ten-minute sustained wind. [16] A short burst of high speed wind is termed a wind gust ; one technical definition of a wind gust is: the maxima that exceed the lowest wind speed measured during a ten-minute time interval ...
The Spanish Manila galleons used the northern Trade winds going west and the westerlies going east. The route of the Manila Galleon from Manila to Acapulco depended upon successful application of the Atlantic phenomenon to the Pacific Ocean : in discovering the North Pacific Gyre , captains of returning galleons had to reach the latitudes of ...
The Intertropical Convergence Zone is the result of the northeasterly trade winds and southeasterly trade winds converging in an area of high latent heat and low pressure. [3] As the two trade winds converge, the cool, dry air collects moisture from the warm ocean and rises, contributing to cloud formation and precipitation.
This established the standard Spanish route to the Americas: south to the Canary Islands, west on the trade winds to the Caribbean, then beat against the wind north of Cuba using the Florida Current to the Gulf Steam, then use it to go north to the westerlies which led directly home. Since wind systems move north in summer and south in winter ...