Why the regions near the equator are hotter while the places near the poles are cooler?

Question

This is related to the angle of insolation.

Answer 1

at the equator, the earth receives direct rays (they are hitting the earth near a 90 degree angle) so the force of a single ray of light is concentrated on one tiny spot. thus, it gets the full force of the sun's power.

the farther away from the equator, the sun shines, ithe individual rays are striking the earth at a smaller angle, thus the ray of light is spread over a larger and larger area the further you get from the equator. thus the impact of a single ray of light is not concentrated on each tiny point, but rather spread out and therefore less intense.

this occurs because the earth is tilted on its axis. this tilt also causes the seasons to be reversed in the northern and southern hemispheres and for each pole to sometimes be always in sunlight or never in sunlight for months at a time.

Answer 2

The reason is that because the sun as a source is so far away, that by the time the light hits the earth, the rays are almost parallel to each other. Imagine this, draw a small circle, and from the centre draw lines going out in all directions, you will notice that two lines next to each other grow further appart the further they get from the circle. If you kept going on one line so far and drew a line so close to the other one, the lines would be almost (but never quite) parallel. So the rays at the top of the earth will be parallel to the rays at the bottom. Also the pictures of the solar system you see, are not to scale because they always show a very large sun. In reality the earth is more than 100 suns away if put back to back. So the large distance makes the size of the sun irrelevant. By the way, once you get out very far, the sun as a source of energy becomes less important, because of the luminosity drops off drastically further from mars.

Answer 3

Cut two small equal squares out of a vertical sheet of paper at the top and bottom (you can imagine this to save trouble). Shine a flashlight (from a distance in a darkened room) through the squares at a basketball (?) focusing one square at the equator and the other near the north pole. Notice that there is a near perfect lighted square at the equator but an elongated rectangle at the pole. The sunlight is concentrate at the equator but spread throughout the rectangle at the pole where there will be less solar energy per square foot of ground and thus less heating effect. The tilt of the earth exaggerates the effect giving us summer and winter seasons at each pole.

Answer 4

The Earth is tiled on its axis. The poles are titled away from the sun and as a result the equator receives the most direct sunlight. The rotation of the Earth causes the Earth to be slightly bulged at the equator.

Answer 5

Because of the orbital inclination of the earth to the plane of the sun's center and the tipping of the earth's axis, the Sun follows an apparent path through the sky over the course of the year called the "ecliptic".

This path is not far away from the earth's equator, and so the sun's rays impinge on the earth's surface more directly in the lower latitudes

Answer 6

everywhere on the equator gets much more sunshine.

At the poles, there is a whole 3 month or so segment of time when it gets NO sunshine. The equator gets sunshine every day, and is never very far from the sun.

Answer 7

The earth is tilted on its axis. and the sun is closest to the equator cause of the way the earth is shape in size making a bulge in the middle of the earth like a belt of warmth also afects the humity and weather patterns

Answer 8

The places by the poles are further from the equator.

Answer 9

The angle the sun hits the areas I think....just a shot in the dark.....i could be way off....

Answer 10

the rotation of the earth on it's axis