The equatorial Front
The subject upon whicn 1 am going to speak, the equatorial
front, is one in which Japanese meteorologists have taken great
interest;
that is partly tne reason way J chose it as tne
Bubject of discussion.
Other names are used for the system -- |
sometimes we near it spoken of as the intertropical convergence
zone; sone, for example, the Norwegian meteorologists, call it
the intertropical front.
The different names reflect different
ideas concerning both the atmosoneric circulation in tne
neighborhood of the equator and the perturbations that affect
it, and at least a brief historical account of those ideas is
necessary to a complete understanding of the preblems I shall >
discuss.
The first description of the equatorial front was
given by two snglish meteorologists, Brooks and Braby, (3) ina
te
paper, "The Clash of the Trades in the Pacific," published by
the Royal Meteorological Society in ite Quarterly Journal soon
after the First world «ar.
sy
From surface wind data for various
stations in the South Pacific, together with a few North Pacific
. observations, the authors calculated and plotted the mean surface
air transport in the equatorial vest Pacific.
I wish to. |
emphasize that their study was almost completely a statistical
one. Theyfound that a line could be drawn near the equator on
the map for the southern hemisphere summer, the mean transport
| being roughly northeasterly north of the line and southeasterly .
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