Dr Robert A Phillips thank you for your contribution to the discussion

As the ground bakes in the sun, the air right above it heats up and starts to rise, and as it gets higher, it experiences a decrease in pressure that allows it to expand and lose heat. And the more air expands, the colder it becomes. Higher elevations are cooler than lower elevations because of adiabatic heating. When a parcel of air moves from a low elevation to a high elevation, it expands because it is under less pressure. It has less weight pressing down on it from the air above it. As the air expands, its temperature drops. The farther away you get from the earth, the thinner the atmosphere gets. The total heat content of a system is directly related to the amount of matter present, so it is cooler at higher elevations. During the winter, the sun's rays hit the Earth at a shallow angle. These rays are more spread out, which minimizes the amount of energy that hits any given spot. Also, the long nights and short days prevent the Earth from warming up. It might seem logical to think that temperatures would rise when Earth is closest to the sun. In reality, Earth is at its coolest at perihelion! That's because rocks heat up much more quickly than water. Most of the landmass on Earth is in the Northern Hemisphere, and most of the Southern Hemisphere is ocean. As air rises, the pressure decreases. It is this lower pressure at higher altitudes that causes the temperature to be colder on top of a mountain than at sea level. Due to the spherical shape of the Earth, sunlight falls on different parts at different angles. Direct and focused sun rays falls on the equator and hence, the regions here are hotter and warmer. The Polar Regions receive diffused sun rays, which is why the areas there are colder. A beam of sunlight falling on the equator has a much more intense effect than the glancing rays spread over a much larger area of the curving surface near the poles. Therefore, it is hotter at the equator than at the North Pole because the sun's heat is concentrated directly overhead at the equator. The temperature of the Polar Regions is significantly colder than the equatorial regions because the sun's rays are not directly at the poles. Thus poles receive the slanted rays of the sun. The equator is a crucial imaginary line that separates the north and south hemispheres, and therefore it gets direct sunlight. Due to the spherical shape of the Earth, sunlight falls on different parts at different angles. Direct and focused sun rays falls on the equator and hence, the regions here are hotter and warmer. The Polar Regions receive diffused sun rays, which is why the areas there are colder. Because they receive less concentrated sunlight, Polar Regions are much colder than other parts of the planet. In the summer, the average temperature at the North Pole is 0° C.At low latitudes, near the equator, direct overhead sunlight received all year warms surface waters. At high latitudes, ocean waters receive less sunlight – the poles receive only 40 percent of the heat that the equator does.