What causes the global air convection current between the equator and the poles?

Answer 1

Because the Earth is (roughly) spherical the Sun's light is distributed over a wider area towards the poles, so has less heating effect.

A diagram may help here:

This effect causes the equatorial regions to be heated considerably more, in turn heating the air masses above them which rise accordingly. The air cools and falls over the poles and returns to the equator closer to the ground.

This assumes there is no other effect (e.g. wind, low or high pressure regions etc.) so represents the simplest case. The reason these things do exist to confound our nice, simple picture is due to the fact that land and ocean heat up at different rates, mountains etc. force air to flow round or over them and there is the coriolis effect (complex, but understandable.)

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Answer 2

Temperature variations and the movement of air masses are the main results of the uneven heating of the Earth's surface, which drives the global air convection current between the equator and the poles.

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Answer from HIX Tutor

When evaluating a one-sided limit, you need to be careful when a quantity is approaching zero since its sign is different depending on which way it is approaching zero from. Let us look at some examples.

When evaluating a one-sided limit, you need to be careful when a quantity is approaching zero since its sign is different depending on which way it is approaching zero from. Let us look at some examples.

When evaluating a one-sided limit, you need to be careful when a quantity is approaching zero since its sign is different depending on which way it is approaching zero from. Let us look at some examples.

When evaluating a one-sided limit, you need to be careful when a quantity is approaching zero since its sign is different depending on which way it is approaching zero from. Let us look at some examples.

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