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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 Leeward Islands are labelled on the map's middle right side. The islands were created mostly by volcanoes in the Lesser Antilles subduction zone. Some are still active. Notable eruptions occurred in Montserrat in the 1990s and in 2009 to 2010. At 1,467 metres or 4,813 feet, the highest point is La Grande Soufrière in Guadeloupe.
The ITCZ is visible as a band of clouds encircling Earth near the Equator. The Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ / ɪ tʃ / ITCH, or ICZ), [1] known by sailors as the doldrums [2] or the calms because of its monotonous windless weather, is the area where the northeast and the southeast trade winds converge.
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.
English: Edmond Halley's map of the trade winds, from (1686). "An Historical Account of the Trade Winds, and Monsoons, Observable in the Seas between and near the Tropicks, with an Attempt to Assign the Phisical Cause of the Said Wind". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 16: 153-168.
The Harmattan is a season in West Africa that occurs between the end of November and the middle of March. It is characterized by the dry and dusty northeasterly trade wind, of the same name, which blows from the Sahara over West Africa into the Gulf of Guinea. [1]
Volta do mar" manoeuvre during Henry the Navigator's (c.1430-1460) lifetime: Atlantic winds (green), currents (blue) and approximate Portuguese sailing routes (red): the further south ships went, the wider off sailing required to return. Note that the boundary between the westerlies and the trade winds moves north in summer and south in winter.