The sun is HOT, tops of mountains are closer to the sun than the base, so why is are the tops covered in snow?

As others have said, the difference in distance between the sun and the tops and bottoms of mountains is insignificant. The real reason that mountain tops are colder is because generally the atmosphere gets colder as you go up.

Some answers claim that it is because the air is thinner, but that is not the case. That argument applies well to ideal gases doing work against pistons, but there is no reason to assume that just because pressure is less that a gas should be cooler. The real reason is that the lower portion of the atmosphere is heated from below (by the heating of the land surface), and the higher you go the farther you are from the heat source, that is why it's cooler.

The difference in distance from the sun between he highest mountain top and the ocean is infinitesimal. What is 4 and a half miles compared to 93,000,000? Not very darn much. You can get one heck of a sunburn up high though due to the thinner atmosphere blocking less UV rays. You need sun block if you ever go skiing in the mountains on a sunny day.
The higher you go, the colder it gets. Airliner cruising altitude from 30,000 up to 40,000 or so feet is a fairly constant -50 deg F.

the gap to the solar is appreciably large that countless kilometers tall of a mountain does not make a distinction. intense altitude areas are chilly because of the fact of adiabatic enlargement of the air from decrease altitudes. it quite is incredibly like in case you have a bowl of marbles, some rapid and a few sluggish, and persons who're rapid will upward thrust, yet as quickly as RISEN, would be sluggish. Similarily, warm air hundreds have a tendency to upward thrust, yet as quickly as risen, some thermal capacity is switched over into gravitational capacity capacity, and the air mass adiabatically reduces in temperature, and surrounds the mountains with chilly air. ------------- ok people who disagree with me: why is "skinny air" unavoidably "chillier"? The moon is almost airless, and it reaches temperatures of close to one hundred twenty Celsius for the period of its "daylight hours". it is rattling warm for a skinny air envirnoment.

Because the tops of the mountains are not much closer to the sun than the base. The atmosphere is what makes the tops of the mountains colder. The higher you go, the thinner the air is, which makes it colder.

Not in our country.

The heat we experience is not mainly from the sun, but from the infra-red radiation relfected by the land. In other words, the sun heats up the land in which we experience the heat every day. Therefore, it is understandable and normal that the ground has a higher temperature than that of the mountains' top. A higher elevation (mountains' top) often has a lower temperature than the ground level. Additionally, the lower the air pressure, the higher the tendency the water becomes ice. According to wikipedia, when local air pressure is lowered and the conditions of surroundings remain unchanged, it causes adiabatic cooling. The higher elevation, the lower the temperature on Earth. In this case, the tops of mountains, which are at high elevation and with low pressure, are commonly found to be covered in snow/ ice.

altitude lol dad answerd

ya above answer is right

Yes, the cooling of the air that results from the lower pressure higher up far far outweighs the tiny tiny amount that the mountain tops are closer to the Sun, i.e. a couple of miles closer vs an average distance of 93 million miles.

heat dissipates in the atmospheric pressure thats why it takes longer to microwave stuf

Michael's answer above is correct. I would just add that snow also reflects sunlight and therefor the heat associated with it also helping to prevent melting.

The further you go up in the atmosphere, the colder it gets.

The suns (heat) is realized by Ultraviolet rays when on a beach the sun does not burn you the ultraviolet rays do, also there is atmospheric
pressure which is greater due to Oxygen and other elements closer to the ground as you go higher these elements become thinner that is why mountain climbers have to be in excellent shape because oxygen
becomes thinner and thinner this is why the ozone layer is critical it blocks certain ultraviolet rays out Snow does not stay on every mountain top, Ultraviolet rays are reflected back into the atmosphere but lose their heat and therefore cannot over come the cold in the upper atmosphere space is ice cold therefore the closer you get to it the colder it is. Gravity makes the atmosphere heavier the heaviest is close to the ground, without gravity there would be no atmosphere therefore it is warmer where gravity is the strongest and coldest where there is no gravity, lower warmer, higher colder

The heat u feel u don't actually feel it from the sun. The heat we feel comes from beneath the earth from the lava core of our planet, which is of course influenced by the sun. But ultimately our planet's HEAT comes from beneath not from above so the mountains peaks are covered in snow because they are far away from the ground level heat.