How does latitude affect the seasons?

Question

Discuss the concentration of solar energy and the earth's tilt.

Answer 1

See details here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latitude Besides the more direct heat tilt of Earth brings depending on your latitude, and tilt of the Earth another major factor is effect it has on winds currents. Only have weak understanding of Jet Stream. Overall this wind pattern must follow tilt of the Earth because how much north or south of the equator these patterns go seems to be influenced by Earth's tilt, so your latitude will determine influences they have. The same thing might happen with Trade Winds, but know nothing of there influences. The seasons are created by both influences, and latitude will determine how much variation you can have and when it will occur.

Answer 2

The way you worded the question (discuss) suggests a longer and more detailed answer than is typical here.

The tilt of the earth's axis is currently 23.44°, which means that the sun is never directly overhead at any location on Earth north or south of that latitude in their respective hemispheres - the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. Thus the name for that general region where it is (between them) and close by is called the tropics. Similarly, at some point during the winter the sun won't rise north of the Arctic Circle nor south of the Antarctic Circle - which are at 66.56° latitude. That is not strictly true actually because of refraction, but close.

Thus we have a situation for which the sun is not far from overhead at noon every day in the topics, and the position of the sun and day length change greatly during the course of the year in the arctic regions.

Geometry is a significant factor because if for example sunshine hits a surface at a 45° angle (from half way between the horizon and the zenith), the surface does not receive only half of it but cos(45°) = .707 or about 71% of that sunlight. So even though the sun will never be close to overhead at mid & high latitudes, they still receive alot of sunlight during summer. For example, a typical location in the U.S. at 40°N. At summer solstice at noon, the sun is 40-23.44 = 16.56° from zenith. Yet because cos(16.56°) = .959, the location is receiving only about 4% less sunlight than it would if the sun were directly overhead.

Over the course of a year, tropical regions receive about 3-4 times as much solar energy as arctic ones - an average of 250 W/m^2 compared with 70. At summer solstice though, more sunshine hits the top of the atmosphere at the pole than anywhere else - about 500 W/m^2 averaged over a day compared to about 390 at the equator. Yet because the rays are to a large extent oblique at high latitudes (more absorbed by the atmosphere and reflected by it & the ground), the maximum solar energy during summer solstice reaches the ground at about 32°N (would be further N if not cloudier) at 315 W/m^2 averaged over a day, compared with 210 at the pole (where the sun is shining - 0 at the other obviously) and 230 at the equator. So in the summer hemisphere, there is a pretty even distribution of sunlight around the solstice.

The consequence of all that is that in arctic regions there is basically a cold season and a warm season with a rather quick transition between them (spring & autumn). Heading thru the mid-latitudes, those transition seasons (spring & autumn) are long enough such that we have a notion of 4 seasons (though winterlike & summerlike conditions persist longer). Then in the tropics the temperatures don't change much during the course of a year such that the seasons are to a larger extent determined by precipitation - dry and wet seasons as the Intertropical Convergence Zone heads across a particular location.

Answer 3

The higher the latitude, the greater the difference in temperature troughout the year. Note that ther are no hurricanes or typhoons below 10 degree of latitude North or South. The reason is that there is no correolis effect at these latitudes.

Answer 4

What Affects The Seasons

Answer 5

becasue the closer to the equator, the warmer it stays. like how florida is always hot, but new york has winter.