Q&A

What do you think the image would look like in July? Why?

In July is when the Earth’s tilt is opposite, and now the sunlight is visible 24-hours a day. I think that the lighter part will be at the North Pole and the darker part in the South Pole, because of 24-hour darkness.

Click on the image for July to check your answer and describe what you found below:

The lightest part is in the North and the darkest in the South. It is opposite. There is only a small area of white, which was Greenland. So it was kind of opposite.

In general, does water or land appear to have the higher reflectance?

Land appears to have a higher reflectance, especially when there is lots of sand or ice; you can see the outline of many mountain ranges, glaciers and deserts. However, in winter the water around Antarctica had a lot of reflectance.

Explain why the poles seem to always show the extremes of reflectance.

The poles get extremes of sunlight. For half the year, each pole has full sunlight, while for the other half of the year they get no sunlight at all. (The Earth’s tilt and the surface the sunlight reflects off of have to do with this.)