In December, the sun is ~147,000,000 km away. In June, it's ~152,000,000 km away. Seem backwards to anybody?

Answer 1

Not really.

The earth's orbit is an ellipse, meaning not a perfect circle.
The Earth is at its closest to the sun in this elliptical orbit in early January, and at its farthest from the sun in July.
The fact that January is northern winter and July is northern summer is simple coincidence.

This pure chance of our orbit means the northern winters are warmer and the northern summers cooler than they could be.

Answer 2

It does seem backwards doesn't it. But distance isn't the key to how the sun affects heat on Earth. It has to do with the tilt of the Earth's axis. Assuming you are in the Northern Hemisphere, ever notice how the sun shines down from high up in the sky (maybe almost directly overhead depending on where you are) during the summer? Well, it's doing that now in the Southern Hemisphere while it shines down on us in the North from a low angle. That angle, a result of the earth's tilt, affects how much the heat/radiation is dispersed over an area.

Way to go with your wonderful Mars and Moon tidbit jdmann4020! Let me guess, you fell for the Mars Hoax in 2005 when they said it would be the closest approach in...what was it, the last 60,000 years, and that it would be as big as the full moon, even though they were repeating the exact same details as the 2003 Opposition (the hoax started up again this year too). As Mars lines up for OPPOSITION (it reaches a position where it is directly opposite from the sun as viewed from Earth) on December 24th, it is actually 6 days past it's CLOSEST APPROACH, at which point it will be .58935 AU from the Earth. Guess what? You don't have to wait until 2040 to see it get closer. The next one will be .50321 AU away on May 30, 2016, and then two years later, it will be .38496 AU away on July 31, 2018. In fact, between this year's closest approach and the one on Dec. 28th, 2040, where it will actually be .61092 (further away than this year), Mars will get closer to the Earth than it will this year eight times. Those years would be 2016, 2018, 2020, 2022, 2031, 2033, 2035, & 2037.

And not to disappoint, but the moon hits closest approach (called perigee) this month on Dec. 22nd, at 10:12 UTC, where it will reach 360816 km away from Earth. It will stay further away for a while. That is until May 6th at 3:23 UTC, June 3rd at 13:09 UTC, and July 1st at 23:25 UTC, where it will reach 357771 km, 357250 km, and 359512 km away (respectively)....all in 2008. A bit sooner than 2020.

Answer 3

It probably doesn't seem backwards to people in the southern hemisphere, where they have winter in June and summer in December. The real cause of the seasons is the 23 degree tilt of the Earth's axis of rotation. In December the north pole points 23 degrees away from the the Sun, which means the sun is directly overhead at 23 degrees south latitude. In June the tilt is 23 degrees toward the Sun which means the sun is directly overhead at 23 degrees north latitude. So basically June is like living 46 degrees closer to the equator for people in the northern hemisphere and 46 degrees farther from the equator in the southern hemisphere. If you shine a light on the ground at a 46 degree angle, the light has to cover 40% more area than if it is shining straight down. This basically means there is 40% more warmth in summer in mid northern latitudes in June due to the tilt. But 152,000,000 is only 3% closer than 147,000,000, which due to the inverse square law means we get about 6% more warmth from the Sun. So a northern hemisphere summer gets about 34% more sun than winter but a southern hemisphere summer gets 46% more warmth in summer. So southern hemisphere summer should be hotter that northern hemisphere summers, but there is less dry land in the southern hemisphere and all that water helps cool it a bit.

Answer 4

This difference in distance has no effect in how the seasons work. The reason that the distance is different at different times of the year is that the orbit of the Earth is not a perfect circle, but an ellipse of almost 0 eccentricity. Seasons are caused by the tilt in Earth's rotational axis. This tilt causes the days in one part of the earth to be shorter or longer than another part of the Earth, thus causing parts of the earth to be exposed to light and heat for longer periods of time than other parts of the Earth, creating seasons.

Answer 5

It's not the distance that makes a difference . It's the tilt of the Earths axis that changes the amount of energy we get from the Sun in the northern and southern hemispheres .

Answer 6

It is January 3rd Sun is nearest to earth and July 4th when we are away from Sun.
The temperature in northern hemisphere is depend upon the angle of incidence of sun light not the distance
Chandramohan

Answer 7

the distance doesn't make a difference regarding the sun-earth proximity as much as the angle. Northern Hem tilted away from the sun during our winter (which is the Southern Hem's summer) and vice versa.

Answer 8

Our hemisphere is tilted toward the sun in June, and away from it in December. Does that make sense?

Answer 9

If your referring to Summer and Winter, distance from the Sun really doesn't have much to do with the seasons. It's the tilt of the Earth on its axis that causes the seasons. I learned that in the 2nd grade. Where did you go to school?

Answer 10

The tilt of the earth reflects more heat. The Erath is on a 23 degree angle.