A THEORY OF THE TEMPORAL AND LATITUDINAL DISTRIBUTION OF TEMPERATURE

Abstract

An attempt is made to explain the observed distribution of mean temperature near the earth's surface over latitude and through the year in terms of insolation, radiative processes, and large-scale atmospheric eddy conduction of sensible heat. The results are close to the observations and indicate that these three factors explain most of the observed distribution. The larger discrepancies are all explainable in terms of physical factors which were not included in the theory.