Why are the North and South poles much colder than the equator?
There is one reason and it has nothing to do with how close the equator is to the sun compared to the poles. The reason is the angle of incidence of the sunlight. At the equator (or more accurately, between the tropic of cancer and the tropic of capricorn, the sun is directly overhead at some point in the year. At the arctic or antarctic circle, at one point in the year, the sun does not rise at all. The total amount of solar energy that any spot on the earth’s surface gets varies from max at the equator to minimum at the poles. So the equator receives much more solar energy than the poles and, therefore, the poles are colder. If you have a globe on a stand the shows the tilt of the earth’s axis, set it on a table, with the lights off, have someone shine a flashlight on it from across the room and look at how the light hits the equator vs the poles.
