On computation of equal area blocks

This paper describes a method of computing equal area elements (blocks) on the surface of a unit sphere. In this method, the surface is initially divided into a number of strips bounded by parallel circles. These strips are then divided into blocks with equal increment of longitude. The number of blocks may be different in different strips. Making use of this flexibility, we can (i) obtain blocks with ratios of (mean) horizontal sides to vertical sides that are close to unity (ii) minimize the number of polar blocks.