Q.Make correct pairs from the following two columns.

Think of the Earth as a giant sponge floating in space. It doesn't drink water, but it does soak up something far more important: energy from the Sun. Every single ray of sunlight that reaches us is carrying heat and light, and that incoming energy is what powers almost everything on our planet — the winds, the ocean currents, the seasons, and even the rain that falls on your city. Without it, Earth would be a frozen, lifeless rock.

Now, here's the first idea: insolation. The word sounds technical, but it's just a contraction of "incoming solar radiation." It's the amount of the Sun's energy that actually reaches the Earth's surface. Not all of it gets here, though. Some is absorbed by the atmosphere, some is scattered by clouds and dust, and some is reflected back into space before it ever touches the ground. The part that does make it down is what we call insolation. It's measured as the energy received per unit area over a given time, but for a humanities student, the key is simpler: insolation is the Sun's heat that actually arrives at a place.

Why does this matter for geography and economics? Because insolation is not spread evenly. The equator gets far more of it than the poles, because the Sun's rays hit the equator almost directly, while at higher latitudes they strike at a slant and spread over a larger area. That single fact explains why tropical regions are hot, why deserts form around certain latitudes, and why the polar ice caps stay frozen. It also drives the seasons — when your hemisphere tilts toward the Sun, you get more insolation and it's summer; tilt away, and you get less, and it's winter. So insolation is the engine behind climate, and climate shapes agriculture, settlement patterns, trade routes, and even national economies.

Now for the second idea: albedo. If insolation is the energy arriving, albedo is the Earth's "reflectiveness." It's a measure of how much of that incoming sunlight bounces back into space without being absorbed. Think of wearing a white shirt on a sunny day versus a black one. The white shirt reflects most of the sunlight, so it stays cooler; the black shirt absorbs it, so it heats up. Albedo works the same way for surfaces. Fresh snow has a very high albedo — it reflects most of the sunlight that hits it. Dark forests, oceans, and asphalt have a low albedo — they absorb most of the energy and warm up.

Here's where it gets interesting, and where the concept becomes genuinely important for understanding the world:

• High albedo surfaces (snow, ice, light-colored sand) reflect energy back to space, keeping the area cool.
• Low albedo surfaces (dark soil, water, forests) absorb energy, warming the area.
• Clouds also have a high albedo — they reflect sunlight back before it reaches the ground, which is why cloudy days feel cooler. …