Uneven Heat Distribution on the Earth Surface -Why ?

So on Monday the 22nd we had our Geog class and came out of it much brighter ( literally)!
We started of the lesson with a cool experiment to understand how the 'position' of the Sun affects the amount of insolation received by the Earth.


As the image above shows, we used a flashlight as a analogy to represent the sun and how the surface area of the Earth receiving insolation increases as the sun moves away from the Earth. Figure A represents the position of the Sun overhead where the heat is focused and concentrated on a small area and is more intense, while Figure B shows the Sun's rays hitting the Earth at an angle where heat is diffused and dispersed over a larger area.

Another concept we discussed was how the spherical shape of the Earth resulted in uneven heat distribution on Earth. The angle of solar incidence differs from place to place in Earth, with the polar regions receiving the sun rays most obliquely (acute angle) and the equator receiving the Sun's rays from straight overhead (right angle). As the diagram above shows, the solar energy received at the poles is much lesser that the solar energy received at the equator. Another reason for this phenomenon is that the white ice and snow found at the poles increases the albedo at the poles, resulting in lesser energy absorption ( +ve feedback).

There were some question that were raised in class and were answered in the next lesson so you'll have to wait for the next post to satisfy your curiosity !

Krittika (07)