98 MALKUS [chap. 4 



may be pointed out that the sea's contribution hes within the disagreement of 

 the net radiation figures (discrepancy between columns two and three, for 

 example) we shall see later that this objection is not quite relevant ; independent 

 oceanic heat budgets of several authors converge on this general magnitude, 

 rendering it at least a serious postulate for further examination. 



Table I 



Mean Annual Energy Transport across Latitude Circles 

 Unit: 1015 cal/sec 



Underlined fluxes directed toward South Pole, all others toward North Pole 



While an annual global average picture of the earth's ocean and air circula- 

 tions and their transports is valuable in depicting the overall operation of the 

 media controlling man's environment, one of the most exciting and important 

 paradoxes of earth sciences lies in the changes and fluctuations therein. Except 

 for man himself, the weather is probably the most variable, unreliable, and 

 fiuctuatory phenomenon of which human intelligence has dared to attempt a 

 science. Since the input of short-wave solar radiation is relatively regular, 

 stable and independent to first order of the circulation, ^ we must probably look 



1 Except possibly for its dependence upon the average cloud distributions over wide 

 regions, fluctuations of which are not well-known and may be quite small. 



