Earth's poles have a deficiency of heat, and the equatorial region has an excess of heat. Why don't the polar regions freeze solid and the equatorial region boil over?

Answer 1

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Currents in the atmosphere and ocean are moving vast amounts of heat from the tropics toward the poles. Water's high heat capacity makes it an ideal fluid to equalize the polar-tropical heat imbalance. Ocean currents and atmospheric weather result from the response of water and air to unequal solar heating. Ocean currents carry heat from the tropics (where incoming energy exceeds outgoing) to the polar regions (where outgoing energy exceeds incoming). The amount of heat transferred in this way is astonishing. For example, "outbound" water in the warm Gulf Stream (a large northward-flowing ocean current just offshore of the eastern United States) is about 10°C (18°F) warmer than "inbound" water coming from the central eastern Atlantic to replace it, meaning that about 10 million calories are transported per cubic meter. Since the flow rate of the Gulf Stream is about 55 million cubic meters per second, some 550 trillion calories are being transported northward in the western North Atlantic each second. Nearly half of these calories reach the high latitudes about 40° N. This warmth has a dramatic moderating influence on the winter climate of northwestern Europe.

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As impressive as the figures are for ocean currents, the amount of heat transported by water vapor in the atmosphere is even greater. About 1 meter (3.3 feet) of water evaporates each year from the surface of the ocean, a volume of water equivalent to 334,000 cubic kilometers (80,000 cubic miles).