There are times during the late summer and early fall months when the arctic channels are considerably obstructed by icebergs, and the low sea-level of Davis Strait and Baffin’s Bay, with the assistance of occasional south-east winds, is able to attract the temperate waters of the Atlantic as far north as the Arctic Circle. Also from the same cause the icy waters which flow down the east coast of Greenland are attracted along its southern and south-western shores into Davis Strait.
Yet at the same time the icy waters which flow from Smith’s Sound and other arctic channels move in a counter-current down the westerly side of Baffin’s Bay and Davis Strait, and so carry the icebergs and field-ice past Labrador and Newfoundland well on to the borders of the Gulf Stream. And, according to Lieutenant Maury, the westerly gales of the winter months force the temperate waters of the Atlantic, which pertain to the Gulf Stream, several degrees away from the south-east coast of Greenland. Therefore, during such seasons the surface waters of the returned arctic currents, which flow down the east coast of Greenland and Davis Strait, are drifted past Southern Greenland and Iceland, and so onward into the arctic seas, north of Europe. Thus the arctic waters maintain an independent circulation sufficient to largely exclude the Gulf Stream from the arctic seas, and surround Greenland with an arctic temperature; and it is on this account glaciers have formed on Greenland and other arctic shores, and such glaciers are probably increasing, as every iceberg launched from the frigid lands and floated to the lower latitudes lowers somewhat the temperature of the North Atlantic, and so causes conditions favorable for larger accumulations of ice on the arctic shores.
Yet it is probable that an ice period extending over the northern temperate zone could not be perfected by this process alone, should the tropical and southern oceans maintain their present temperature. But, with the assistance of a frigid period in the southern hemisphere to cool the ocean waters, and thus lower the temperature of all tropical currents, including the Gulf Stream and Japan currents, an ice age could be brought about in the northern hemisphere equal in intensity to the glacial periods of the past.