How does solar heating make the tropics warmer than the polar regions?

Question

If air currents keep moving to the colder regions, why are the trophics still warmer?

Answer 1

The reason higher latitudes (Away from the tropics) have lower temperatures is mainly because at higher latitudes the sun rays are less perpendicular to the surface of the earth, thus the Earth receives less heat from the sun.

Imagine you are holding a flashlight above a table. Hold it so the beam goes straight down. You will see a nice circle of light on the table.

Now hold the flashlight at the same height, but at an angle over the table. Notice that now the same amount of light is spread over a larger, oval area.

The same amount of energy has to shine on a larger area, thus you have less energy per unit of area. In the same way, the sun rays are more askew to the Earth's surface near the poles, so the Earth receives less heat, thus you have lower temperatures.

Another component is the angle of inclination of the Earth's axis. In the winter, days are a lot shorter thus the sun shines less over the land. This is why it gets colder in the winter.

Now to answer your question: Air currents form the polar regions, which are indeed cold, travel south towards the tropics and vice-versa. However, there is heat exchange along the way, usually manifested in the form of storms and weather fronts. (Storm fronts, tornadoes, etc, are caused by cold air meeting warm air). This heat exchange helps keep the tropics warm and the polar regions cold.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Methane gas. The starting to be element of methane gas contained in the ambience is causing the increasing temperature. the classic human shall we out the gas 14 cases an afternoon. there is about 7 billion people contained in the international. farm animals it truly is increasing to feed the people is an animal that creates large quantities of methane gas. interior united statesa. the politicians are pondering putting a tax on farm animals to help fund the study to sluggish international warming. The organic gas that people and animals are letting off time-honored is contributing to this problem.

Answer 3

the simple answer is incident angle, basically this is saying that the angle of "impact" in the tropics is closer to 90 rather than a 12 or so for the polar regions.

On your second question I would state that it is because of energy transfer between molecules is slowed as you approach because of the ambient energy, which is related to my first answer.