Page:Scientific Memoirs, Vol. 1 (1837).djvu/150

 138 but it does not appear that these variations can ever produce any considerable effect on the heat of the globe. The quantities of solar heat which fall in equal times upon the two hemispheres are nearly equal; but on account of the different states of their surfaces, those quantities are absorbed in different proportions; and the power of absorbing the rays of the sun increasing in a greater ratio than the radiating power, which is greater for dry land than for the sea, we conclude that the mean temperature of our hemisphere, where dry land is in a greater proportion, must be greater than that of the southern hemisphere; which agrees with observation.

The solar heat, which reaches each point of the globe, varies at different hours of the day; it is null when the sun is beneath the horizon; during the year it varies also with its declination; and the expression changes its form as the latitude of the point under consideration is greater or less than the complement of the obliquity of the ecliptic. I have therefore considered the part of the exterior temperature which arises from this source of heat as a discontinuous function of the horary angle, and of the longitude of the sun, to which I have applied the formulæ of the preceding Chapters, in order to convert it into series of sines and cosines of the multiples of these two angles. By this means I have obtained the complete expressions of the diurnal and annual inequalities of the temperature of the earth which arise from its double motion. These formulæ show, that at the equator the annual inequalities are much less than elsewhere; a circumstance which furnishes the explanation of a fact observed by M. Boussingault in his journey to the Cordilleras, and upon which he had relied in order to determine with great facility the climateric temperatures of the places which he visited. The same formulæ agree also, in a remarkable manner, with the temperatures which M. Arago has observed at Paris during many years, and at depths varying from two to eight metres (from 6·56 to 26·24 English feet).