"The amount of daylight and the angle the Sun's rays strike Earth vary with because the of Earth's tilt with respect to the solar plane changes during the course of a year."

latitude; direction

Explanation:

Folowing the lalitude of the Earth we observe that the sun’s rays are more intense at the equator and they become less intense as we aproach the poles. At the same time this intensity fluctuates during the seasons due to the Earth's tilted axis (23.5 degree angle), this makes that the hemisphere that is closer to the sun receives more sunlight than the opposing hemisphere.

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a. european colonies