Why is it cold during perihelion?

At present, perihelion takes place annually on or around January 3, during the northern hemisphere's winter season.

The primary cause of the seasons is the axial tilt, or obliquity, of the Earth's rotational axis.

The Earth's distance from the Sun varies from 147,000,000 km at perihelion to 152,100,000 km at aphelion. This difference of approximately 5,000,000 km has no discernible impact on Earth's temperature.

Precession causes the date of perihelion to move forward by roughly one day every 70 years. This means that in 5,600 years, perihelion will occur in the spring in the northern hemisphere, when the cold will no longer be present.

I grew up believing that the main cause of the annual temperature variations in some regions was that Earth was periodically closer to the sun than it was.

The fact that the summers and winters in the northern and southern hemispheres fall on different seasons per year perplexed me.

Eventually, I discovered that the main cause of our seasons is the Earth's tilt, which makes the sun appear lower in the sky during the winter and thus produce less heat.

The fact that this happens (for those of us in the northern hemisphere) around the sun's closest approach is most likely a coincidence, and it will gradually alter over the course of a 26 000 year cycle.

It is actually winter in the Northern Hemisphere during perihelion, the point in Earth's orbit when it is closest to the Sun. This is because of the tilt of the Earth's axis, which distributes the Sun's rays over a larger surface area, resulting in less direct sunlight and lower temperatures. In addition, the angle of sunlight is less intense during perihelion, which further contributes to lower temperatures even though the Earth is closer to the Sun.