Question

Describe patterns you observe in Earth’s surface temperature. How do these patterns change during the course of a year and from year to year? Use lines of latitude and degrees Celsius in your description.

Answer 1

Answer:

. In this unit, we will be discussing Latitude as a climatic control. By latitude we are not talking about geographic location. Rather our interest will center on the effect of latitudinal location on the receipt of solar energy at the Earth's surface. To a degree the Greeks were on to the idea when they proposed their Torrid, Temperate and Frigid temperature zones over 2000 years ago.

02. Specifically in this section on Latitude, we are going to cover four topics:

Earth-Sun Relationships. This section will deal with the actual receipt of solar energy at the Earth's surface. The receipt of solar energy is directly related to the relationships which exist between the Earth and the Sun across the year. All of you would recognize the basic relationships. Each day we can see that the Sun "rises" in the east and sets in the west. Most would also recognize that over a 12 month period the Sun "moves" from north to south in our sky. In other words, the Sun not only "moves" from east to west, but also north to south. And how about the fact that days tend to get longer in the northern hemisphere from December 21 to June 21, and then grow shorter from June 21 to December 21? Earth-Sun relationships cause changes in the amount of insolation received day to day and seasonally. And, depending upon the relationship, the amount of insolation changes locationally and through time. The resultant temperatures created due to these changing relationships create pressure differences which are largely responsible for winds. The winds in turn drive the ocean currents and our weather.

Answer 2

The observations regarding Earth’s surface temperature are as follows:

• Earth's surface temperature or the global surface temperature has been constantly rising and each year it's breaking the previous hottest days record.
• One of the major reasons for this is global warming
• The Earth's surface experiences a range of temperature at any given point owing to different conditions such as angle of the sun, distance from the sun, the latitude of the place, distance from the sea, altitude of the place, ocean currents, and finally some other local aspects.
• High latitude regions (beyond Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn) warm faster than the average due to positive feedbacks from the retreat of the ice.