Summary: | Climatology as a branch of Geography and even of Meteorology has been mainly a descriptive subject. Hare (1960) has pointed out that only in comparatively recent years has there been an attempt to explain quantitatively how the various parameters of climate evolve and thus to approach the ultimate question of how it is that one climate varies from another. Most of the answers are to be found through Meteorology, and must be, since the tools required for this work have been developed there. The following is an attempt to explain what processes, and of how great a magnitude, cause temperature changes in the layers of the atmosphere below 500 mb.
|