SLO 2: Circulation Patterns

Trade Winds

Also known as the easterlies, the trade winds are the way winds move from east to west continuously near the equator region of the Earth.

Trade winds have been used by many sailors on ships for several centuries. They have helped in the establishment of trade routes between countries who travel across the Pacific and the Atlantic Ocean.

According to the National Maritime Historical Society, captains chose routes that followed regular wind patterns and currents to help them get to their destination in the shortest amount of time.

-In 1847, a US Navy geographer named Matthew Fontaine Maury published the first Wind and Current Chart of the North Atlantic, which showed sailors how to use the ocean’s currents and prevailing winds to shorten the length of their voyages. Sea captains who followed Maury’s advice altered the routes they sailed to follow the prevailing winds that blow consistently across the oceans.

-Faster voyages meant they could complete more trips over time and thus make more profits.

The way these trade winds form, according to the National Ocean Service is between about 30 degrees north and 30 degrees south of the equator, in a region called the horse latitudes when the Earth's rotation causes air to slant toward the equator in a southwesterly direction in the northern hemisphere and in a northwesterly direction in the southern hemisphere. This process is otherwise known as the Coriolis Effect.

Older ships captains used the wind in their sails to go on the fastest available route.

Newer ships have been evolved as technology advanced to no longer need these sails to move across the oceans.

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