ABSTRACT

The climatologist usually has the advantage of acute geographical knowledge. Since 1945 all branches of meteorology have made great progress and have stimulated corresponding advances in climatology, although allowance must be made for the usual long educational time-lag. It must be admitted that in some areas the airmass which sustains the climate dominates over the fronts which supply the weather. Meteorologists do not agree upon the relative importance of solar heating, with its meridional implications, and of lateral mixing or eddy-action in the energizing of the global circulation as a whole. Most modern climatological texts show a similar interpretation but a few omit any reference to motions in the upper troposphere in middle latitudes. The ‘ozonosphere’ or region of ozone concentration at about 20 km to 50 km seems to undergo definite seasonal and even diurnal oscillations as well as a general circulation.