traduccion

THE EARTH´S ATMOSPHERE AND OCEANS
Man lives at the bottom of an ocean or air. Humans are air-breathers dependent on favorable conditions of pressure, temperature, and chemical composition of theatmosphere that surrounds them. Humans also live on the solid outer surface of the earth, which they depend on for food, clothing, shelter, and means of movement from, place to place. But the air andthe land are not two entirely separate realms; they constitute an interface across which there is a continual flux of matter and energy. Man´s surface environment, the life layer, is a shallow buthighly complex zone in which atmospheric conditions exerts control on the land surface, while at the same time the surface of the land exerts an influence on the properties of the adjacent,atmosphere. Essentially the same statements apply to the surface of the oceans and theatmospheric layer above it. Man utilizes the surface of the sea as a source of food and as means of transportation. There is a continual flow of energy and matter between the sea surface and the lower layer ofthe atmosphere. Here, again, we find an, 10 interface of vital concern to man. There sea influences the atmosphere aboveit, while the atmosphere influences the sea beneath it. Our objective in these early chaptersis to examine the atmosphere and oceans with particular reference to the air-land and air-sea interfaces that are so vital to man. To geographers, the distributions of physical properties of the oceanand, atmospheres are matters of special interest, concerned as they are with spatial relationships on a global scale. Physical...