What factor explains why a mountain located near equator can be covered with snow?

Answer 1

Temperature decreases with altitude, by an average of about 6.5 degrees C per 1000 meters. Even in the tropics, snow can fall at the highest elevations (above 4,000 meters, generally). On mountains such as Kilimanjaro, not all of the snow that falls melts, thereby forming glaciers.

The higher you travel up a mountain, the cooler the temperature becomes-and the thinner the air becomes as well (which means there are smaller quantities of the gasses, like oxygen, that make up air). Some mountains are so high that the air at the top is always cold, never warming enough for snow to melt.

No creatures can live in the highest regions of tall mountains, withstanding the cold, wind, and thin air; beyond a certain height (13,000 feet, or 3,965 meters at the equator and around 15,000 feet on the Himalayas) trees cannot grow on mountainsides. To stay alive when climbing the highest peaks, mountain climbers must take along tanks of oxygen to breathe.

Answer 2

Snowfalls occur above the line of freezing temperatures. At the equator, where insolation is very high, this line is consequently at much higher altitudes than in cooler latitudes.

At the equator snow typically falls above 4,500 to 4,600 metres (18,000 feet) above sea level. Between this latitude and around 3,000 metres or 9,800 feet, there is a pattern of nightly freezes followed by a strong daily thaw all year round due to the combination of thin chilled air and extremely high solar radiation. Even above the snow line, there is some thaw but it is more than balanced by freezing and with the high precipitation snow remains on the ground, as with Mount Kenya, the Rwenzoris and the Tropical Andes.

It must be noted that the snow line at the equator is by no means the highest in the world. Slightly longer days and stable air at the Tropics means that more snow can be melted and less will fall. Even in the humid Himalayas the snow line is around 5,500 to 5,600 metres and in the Desert Andes it is as high as 6,500 metres. As far from the equator as the Uinta Mountains in Utah at 43˚N, the snow line is still as high as at the equator due to low precipitation and long, hot summer days.

Answer 3

Snow can fall on the equator, despite the extremely high insolation and consequent hot temperatures, where snow is restricted by the reduced convection at cool temperatures. Typically frosts occur at the equator above 3,000 metres (9,800 feet) and daily temperatures reach freezing at 4,500 metres (14,800 feet).

Snow may fall on the equator slightly below 4,500 metres, but it stays on the ground only above 4,600 metres. Since there is no seasonal temperature change at the equator, snow that stays on the ground will be permanent. This is why the snow line shows an "equatorial depression" from its highest altitudes at the Tropics, and why permanent snow exists on the equator but not within 450 kilometres of the Tropics - though it does snow in such latitudes in winter on Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa in Hawaii and Yushan in Taiwan.

Answer 4

Those places are at much higher elevations than most places around the equator. Therefore, there is less air over those places, resulting in less air pressure and less of what makes the atmosphere like a blanket.

Answer 5

Because areas near the equator receive too much solar radiation throughout the entire year.

Areas near the equator never usually receive temperatures below 75 degrees Fahrenheit (with the exception of the chilly nights in hot deserts).

Hope this has helped.

Answer 6

Higher Elevation:)