Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II THE CLASSIFICATION OF CLIMATES Need of a Classification of Climates—Relation of Continental and Ocean Areas to Temperature: Reasons for the Slow Change in the Temperature of Ocean Waters—Marine or Oceanic Climate—Continental Climate—Desert Climate—Coast or Littoral Climate—Monsoon Climate—Mountain and Plateau Climate—Mountains as Climatic Divides. Need of a Classification of Climates. A broad division of the earth's surface into zones is necessary as a first step in any systematic study of climate, but it is not satisfactory when a more detailed discussion is undertaken. The reaction of the physical features of the earth's surface upon the atmosphere complicates the climatic conditions found in each of the zones, and makes further subdivision desirable. Under the control of these different physical conditions,' the climatic elements unite to produce certain fairly distinct types of climate, and these may be classified in various ways. The usual method is to separate the continental (near sea-level) and the marine. An extreme variety of the continental is the desert; a modified form, the littoral; while altitude is so important a control that mountain and plateau climates are further grouped by themselves. Relation of Continental and Ocean Areas to Temperature. Land and water differ greatly in their behaviour regarding absorption and radiation. The former warms and cools readily, and to a considerable degree; the latter, slowly and but little. (1) Of the insolation which falls upon the ocean, a good deal is at once reflected, and is therefore not available for warming the water. Land surfaces, on the other hand, are poor reflectors; but little insolation is lost in that way; hence more energy is available for raising their temperature. (2) Most of the insolat...