The reasons for the change of seasons for each person become relevant. Already in childhood, the child begins to ask questions. Why is winter coming? What is happening with our planet? Why is there a different climate in different countries?
The first and main explanation is the creation of optimal climatic conditions for human habitation. With the changing seasons, the temperature on the whole planet becomes comfortable for living.
What does astronomy say about the changing seasons?
Spring, summer, autumn, winter are eternal and non-replaceable natural phenomena. The reason for such natural phenomena is the movement of the globe in outer space. The earth moves in a conventional orbit, which has the shape of an elongated circle.
Unfortunately, many people still live by the stereotypes of school curricula, where the explanation of why winter comes was the approach and removal of the planet from the Sun during movement.
Astronomers have long disproved this theory and argue that the change is due to the axis of rotation of the planet. It is tilted by 23 degrees, so the sun's rays unevenly heat different parts of the Earth at different times.
Why is it very cold in winter?
The movement of the Earth in orbit around the sun takes 1 year or 365 days. During the entire movement, the planet rotates on its conditional axis, which causes the change of day and night.
When the northern hemisphere of the Earth turns to the Sun, it receives the maximum number of rays, while in the southern such rays will fall "casually" to the earth's surface.
Autumn, winter are those time periods when the Earth is at the maximum distance from the Sun. The day becomes short, and the sun shines, but does not warm.
The minimum amount of heat from a celestial body is explained simply. The rays fall obliquely to the surface, the sun does not rise high above the horizon, so the heating of the air will be slow.
What happens to air masses in winter?
When the air temperature drops, the evaporation decreases, the air humidity changes. When the concentration of water vapor in the atmosphere decreases, the ability to retain heat on the Earth’s surface is also minimized.
A transparent atmospheric mass of air is not able to absorb infrared radiation, which performs heating of the air and the earth's surface. Why is it cold in winter? Only because the surface and air cannot retain heat, which is already supplied in minimal quantities.
What is the sun in winter?
It is extremely important to explain to the children about the sun, its changes in the winter. Here the emphasis should be placed on the fact that the Sun is a huge, red-hot star around which a large number of planets revolve.
The sun has a huge temperature, not a single person or aircraft can approach it, since it will simply melt and destroy them.
Thanks to solar energy, rays on planet Earth, life is possible: trees grow, animals and people live. Without solar heat, all life will die in a short period of time.
Solar energy and rays in the winter do not warm so intensely, but can do more harm to the skin. This feature has a logical explanation: the entire surface of the planet, which should reflect the rays, is light and mirror, as it is covered with snow. The human body cannot reflect, it receives ultraviolet rays and is actively saturated with them. Doctors emphasize that tanning in the winter is more dangerous than in the summer. The skin is oversaturated with ultraviolet from the sun and may even get burned.
Interesting facts about winter
Why winter comes, children and adults can be explained by knowing the basics of astronomy. But what does winter nature conceal, what interesting facts about winter are known to science and people?
- Snowflakes. Scientists have repeatedly studied snowflakes that fall to the surface of the earth. Such work requires special training, equipment and scrupulousness. The discovery for people was that snowflakes can have 7 types: star crystals, needles, columns, columns with tips, transparent dendrites, irregularly shaped snowflakes.
- The speed of the snow mass. For many, snow is a soft, airy substance, but with a large amount of snow mass it can come off the surface of the earth in the form of an avalanche. The minimum speed of such an avalanche is 80 km / h, the maximum is 360 km / h. A huge mass of snow blows everything in its path. If a person falls under an avalanche, then he dies due to the enormous weight or lack of oxygen.
- For most of the world's population, the question of why winter comes is not relevant. They don’t even know that a sharp change in air temperature can occur, indicators will drop below 0, it is snowing. In some kingdoms of hot countries, they arrange games on artificial snow from sugar to amuse their subjects.
Why is winter coming? Such a question, sooner or later, is asked by every child. Using the material presented, each parent will be able to easily and interestingly answer him this question.