THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT

The Sun animates the Earth. Without its energy, our planet would be a lifeless, motionless rock. It bathes Earth constantly with abundant, free energy, and Earth responds with an unfathomable variety of living and physical marvels ranging in scale from microbes to vast ocean currents.

In this lesson, we look at how sunlight absorbs into the surface, its effect on temperature, flows of heat through the air and ocean, and variations from place to place.