Author: Michael Garstang

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 422

ISBN-13: 9780195112702

Called the firebox of the atmosphere, the tropics absorb more energy from the Sun than they lose through longwave emissions; this excess energy activates processes in the temperate and polar regions of the Earth. This book documents the historical evolution of concepts which describe the complex interactions of scales of motion which connect the surface, mixed, and cloud layers to the deeper atmosphere of the tropics. Thermodynamic and kinematic consequences of these transfers of energy are extended to the geochemical and living worlds.