What are the characteristics of Earth’s main climate regions? How do the climate regions differ from one another?

What factors cause the differences between climate regions?

The Earth has three main climate zones: tropical, temperate, and polar. The climate region near the equator with warm air masses is known as tropical. In the tropical zone, the average temperature in the coldest month is 18 °C. This is warmer than the average temperature of the warmest month in the polar zone.

Whereas weather refers to short-term changes in the atmosphere, climate describes what the weather is like over a long period of time in a specific area. Different regions can have different climates. And, we refer to these three-decade averages of weather observations as Climate Normals.

The climate of a region depends on many factors including the amount of sunlight it receives, its height above sea level, the shape of the land, and how close it is to oceans. Since the equator receives more sunlight than the poles, climate varies depending on its distance from the equator.