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For example, with an axial tilt is 23°, and at a latitude of 45°, then the summer's peak sun angle is 68° (giving sin(68°) = 93% insolation at the surface), while winter's least sun angle is 22° (giving sin(22°) = 37% insolation at the surface). Thus, the greater the axial tilt, the stronger the seasons' variations at a given latitude.
Direct insolation is equal to the solar irradiance above the atmosphere minus the atmospheric losses due to absorption and scattering. While the solar irradiance above the atmosphere varies with the Earth–Sun distance and solar cycles , the losses depend on the time of day (length of light's path through the atmosphere depending on the solar ...
The five components of the climate system all interact. They are the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the cryosphere, the lithosphere and the biosphere. [1]: 1451 Earth's climate system is a complex system with five interacting components: the atmosphere (air), the hydrosphere (water), the cryosphere (ice and permafrost), the lithosphere (earth's upper rocky layer) and the biosphere (living things).
An example was a highly credible forecast of a dry spell in Africa during the sunspot minimum of the early 1930s. When the period turned out to be wet, a meteorologist later recalled "the subject of sunspots and weather relationships fell into dispute, especially among British meteorologists who witnessed the discomfiture of some of their most ...
The amount of Sun energy reaching a location on Earth ("insolation", shown in blue) varies through the seasons.As it takes time for the seas and lands to heat or cool, the surface temperatures will lag the primary cycle by roughly a month, although this will vary from location to location, and the lag is not necessarily symmetric between summer and winter.
The intensity of albedo temperature effects depends on the amount of albedo and the level of local insolation (solar irradiance); high albedo areas in the Arctic and Antarctic regions are cold due to low insolation, whereas areas such as the Sahara Desert, which also have a relatively high albedo, will be hotter due to high insolation.
Denudation incorporates the mechanical, biological, and chemical processes of erosion, weathering, and mass wasting. Denudation can involve the removal of both solid particles and dissolved material. These include sub-processes of cryofracture, insolation weathering, slaking, salt weathering, bioturbation, and anthropogenic impacts. [4]
In the absence of such extreme air-mass changes, diurnal temperature variations typically range from 10 °F (5.6 °C) or smaller in humid, tropical areas, up to 40 to 50 °F (22.2 to 27.8 °C) in higher-elevation, arid to semi-arid areas, such as parts of the U.S. Western states' Intermountain Plateau areas, for example Elko, Nevada, Ashton ...