Lakes and the air-water interface

Summary

The rapid increase in the sophistication of oceanographic and atmospheric theory and technique which characterizes the present decade has important implications for the study of lakes. The relatively small size of most lakes makes their physical state more transient and more intimately in tune with the vagaries of the atmosphere above them than are the oceans. The atmospheric influence is felt through the flux of mass, momentum and energy through the surface — fluxes which are at the heart of most physical phenomena within the lake.

In the preceding pages the author has tried to outline the nature of our present knowledge about these air-water relations and some of the problems of theory and practice which arise from them. He hopes the challenge to the physical limnologist is clear.