324 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON. 



Chamberlin, T. C, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois. Study of 

 fundamental problems of geology. (For previous reports see Year Books 

 Nos. 2-21.) 



The usual investigations have been continued, but report on these is 

 deferred to give place to the results of some inquiries in geo-climatic Unes, 

 to which considerable time has been devoted during the past year. An 

 inquiry has been made into the ability of the several constituents of the 

 atmosphere to serve as agencies of thermal storage, or, more specifically, an 

 analysis has been made of the processes of heating and cooling the atmosphere 

 with special reference to the time during which the various units of energy 

 prolong their thermal action before escape from the atmosphere, together 

 with the relationship of this to the time-factor of geologic climates. It may 

 seem unnecessary to. urge that the time of continuance of a given unit of 

 energy in thermal action in the atmosphere is as essential to a true measure 

 of its value as the number of such units in action. And yet, while this is not 

 questioned, the time-factor has failed to receive the attention that has been 

 given to the quantity-factor; indeed, certain phases of the time-factor have 

 been almost ignored. Nearly all the heat received by the atmosphere enters 

 it in the form of continuous chains of vibration, and the value of these as 

 chains has naturally received first attention. These chains, however, are 

 being continually broken into constituent units, and these units enter at once 

 on their own courses of action, which run parallel in time with the original 

 chains and enhance the total effect. The nature of these enhancing effects is 

 the leading feature of this report. 



The range of the report is limited to prolongation of thermal action in the 

 lower atmosphere and the outer film of the earth, since these constitute the 

 essential parts of the climatic zone as commonly understood and as geo- 

 logically important. The geo-climatic field centers, broadly considered, on 

 the contact zone between the troposphere, the hydrosphere, and the htho- 

 sphere. The more remote influences of the stratosphere and the still higher 

 atmospheric zone revealed by meteor trains on the outer side and of the 

 interior of the earth on the inner side are relatively negligible in a brief survey 

 of essentials. 



At the outset it is to be noted that the amount of heat which enters the 

 climatic zone and the amount which escapes from it — which are approx- 

 imately equal — do not alone determine the temperature within it, any more 

 than the heat entering a room and the heat escaping from it alone determine 

 its temperature. The detention and repetitive action of the heat are equally 

 important. For example, W. H. Dines has estimated the mean atmospheric 

 intake of solar energy at 360 calories per cm^ per day and the escape as the 

 same;^ but he places the radiation from the earth's surface at 500 calories, 

 while 200 calories are conveyed to the atmosphere by contact and otherwise; 

 that is, 700 calories per cm^ per day are in action near the contact zone between 

 the earth and the atmosphere. This implies 90-odd per cent of repetitive 

 overlapping or duplicate action. And yet doubling of the intake value is a 

 small enhancement compared with what is very commonly attained in do- 

 mestic and industrial practice, notably in the thermos bottle. Theoretically, 



^ Quart. Jour. Roy. Meteorological Soc, vol. 43, pp. 151-158 (1917). 



