Why is India always so much hotter than places like Brazil or Central African countries that are actually on the equator?

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You always hear about these extreme heat waves in India, which is still some distance from the equator, yet you never seem to hear the same from places like Brazil which are actually on the equator.

In: Planetary Science

2 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Latitude is only *one* thing that matters when we talk about climate. Latitude tells you how much sunlight an area will get and for how long during any given part of the year.

You also have to look at things like physical geography of the land – for instance, there is a big rainforest in Brazil that helps keep temperatures a little more moderate, though there *are* parts of Brazil that get *extremely* hot. Mountains, deserts, coastlines, cities and other features all play different roles in how heat affects an area.

And the world is full of big systems moving heat around, especially through the oceans and air – even if a country is further away from the equator, it can get warmer air from outside just because of how the air moves around the earth’s atmosphere. *And* places like India are pretty big – the entire country is not going to be under a heat wave, just like the entire country of Brazil is not going to *not* be under a heat wave.

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