A climate map: how does the sun's energy effect the world and its oceans?

The climate map belows shows the solar radiation over the planet.

The sun is the ultimate trigger for most physical and biological processes in ecosystems around the world, including at the surface of the tropical sea.

Sunlight is used by plants and some animals at the base of the food pyramid to create energy through photosynthesis, and this ultimately supports most familiar animals, including ourselves. This occurs in almost all habitats around the world, and the surface of the ocean is no exception. Here, the sun is used for photosynthesis by tiny floating plants, the phytoplankton, which explode in blooms when temperatures rise, especially in the temperate oceans.

However, the sun is not only the trigger for biological reactions, its heat ultimately drives the physical actions of the atmosphere and the ocean. It is the single biggest cause of our climate and weather. Because of the shape, rotation and angle of the Earth, the amount of solar radiation received annually on different parts of the world varies. Some areas, such as the larger, bulging middle of the globe, the tropics, receive excess sunlight (represented by the red colour in the climate map below), while the polar regions have a deficit (deeper blue), and the mid latitudes (green), come out more or less even. This uneven distribution of sunlight determines temperature differences in both ocean and atmosphere. This drives the wind and ocean currents of the entire world and ultimately result in our climate and weather conditions.

The distribution and range of temperatures are not just simply due to the shape of the Earth, but also the differences in the physical properties of land and water. Because water takes longer to heat up and only slowly releases heat, there is much less variation in the temperature of the surface of the seas than the surface of the land. In contrast land where temperatures span 100 degrees from Antarctica to the deserts, ocean surfaces have a range from a minimum temperature of a few degrees below zero Celsius up to a maximum of about 30 degrees.