Professor Lewis Dartnell, Professor of Science Communication, wrote an article for the BBC’s HistoryExtra about how the discovery of Europe’s trade winds sparked the Age of Exploration and European empire building.
The article discusses how the discovery of wind patterns and circulation systems within the Earth’s atmosphere determined the routes of trade networks across the globe, and as such, the patterns of colonisation and empire building which formed the foundations of globalisation and the modern world.
Speaking on the rise of exploration programmes by European mariners, Professor Dartnell explains: “This leap forward in long-distance exploration was possible because mariners came to understand the patterns of reliable winds and ocean currents around the globe, which now determined the trade routes that brought great riches to Europe. It was realised, for example, that the band of prevailing winds blowing to the west in the North Atlantic has a mirror-image counterpart in the southern hemisphere, and that the band of winds that enabled the return voyage back to Europe across the Atlantic Ocean are also present in the Pacific. There is a global pattern to the winds, caused by the fundamental circulation systems of the planet’s atmosphere.”
Explaining the impact that this had on Europe’s place in the world, Professor Darnell writes: “As navigators decoded these global patterns of alternating bands of prevailing winds and wheeling ocean currents, they realised that they could use them as a great interlinked system of conveyor belts to carry them where they wanted to go. European sailors reached across the great expanses of the world’s oceans, established long-range maritime trade routes, and controlled and protected all of these overseas interests with their powerful gunpowder weapons.”
Read the full article on the HistoryExtra webiste.
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