Question #06a71

1 Answer
Aug 29, 2017

Albedo and sun angle.

Explanation:

In general terms the main factor for uneven heating of the Earth is the angle that the energy from the sun strikes the Earth. Since the Earth is a sphere (for all intents and purposes) the angle that sunshine strikes the Earth can be anywhere from 90 degrees at the subpoint to 0 degrees at the poles. Obviously this will cause a huge variation in the amount of heat that an area gets since the lower the angle the more likely the energy will reflect. This is why the equator is warmer than the poles.

The second major factor for uneven heating is albedo or reflectivity.
We all learned in elementary school that a black piece of paper will heat up faster in the sun than a white one. This is because the black piece of paper does not reflect the heat, but the white one does. So when you have 2 different surface types, like a black asphalt parking lot and a green field the rate that they heat up is different. The green field will reflect some of the sunlight, whereas the parking lot will not. So the parking lot gets heated a lot more. This is how areas of similar latitude can have uneven heating.

Other factors do exist, like length of daylight and elevation, but these do not have close to the same affect as the first two.