The ocean is as important to the climate as the atmosphere

ForHomo sapiens , a dry-land species, discussions of the climate and how it is changing tend to revolve around what is going on in the atmosphere. This is a dangerously parochial attitude, for the atmosphere is but one of two fluid systems circulating above Earth’s solid surface. The other, the ocean, is in many ways the more important of the pair.It is the circulation of the ocean which, by redistributing heat, limits the temperature difference between tropics and poles to about 30°C. Were the atmosphere alone responsible for moving heat, that difference would be more like 110°C. And, when it comes to anthropogenic global warming, the problem would be far greater without the ocean’s buffering effect.