Mike Peterson, age 12, of St. Paul, Minnesota, for his Question:

HOW DOES THE EQUATOR AFFECT TEMPERATURE AROUND IT?

The air above the equator even affects the warm spells that drift westward across Minnesota. The world's wide waist bets more than its share of solar radiation and this dynamic energy programs the entire weather engine from pole to pole. The atmosphere absorbs uneven quotas of heat from land and sea. The equator starts winds that start other winds that transport heat in a general system of global circulation.     Our weather operates within a global pattern. It mingles and merges within the restless troposphere, which reaches from five to about ten miles above the surface. This general circulation is governed by the sun and the tilted, rotating earth, by the geography of land and seas    plus the behavior of gases related to moisture and temperature. The equator is the key to this global weather engine because of its strategic location.     It is, of course, merely a marker around the world's wide waist exactly halfway between the two poles. These opposite geographic poles are the ends of the axis around which the planet rotates, tilted 23 1/2 degrees toward its orbital plane. This angle, plus the earth's shape and rotation, place the equatorial belt where it gets the lion's share of sunshine. The daily sun climbs high overhead and its beams pass straight down by the shortest route through the atmosphere. The days last about 12 hours, with no long winter nights to allow the warmth to escape.     What's more, most of the equator crosses oceans, where the warm air absorbs loads of moisture. Its vapor lets through solar ultraviolet but tends to retain infrared. This creates a greenhouse effect with surplus heat that must be shared and circulated around the globe. The equatorial zone converts much of its surplus heat to energy to set this in motion. Its warm air must expand and rise, turn around and enter an upper level system of global circulation. Meantime, at the surface, strong winds are drawn in to replace the light, rising equatorial air. They in turn relay energy to power the prevailing ,rind belts between the poles and the equator.     Actually, the path of the seasonal sun moves between the Tropics of Cancer    and

Capricorn, 23 1/'2 degrees on either side of the geographical equator. It carries with it the dynamic greenhouse that converts its surplus heat into the energy that powers the general circulation of the troposphere. The equator affects not only the neighboring tropics, but to a large extent it governs the weather of the whole world.

Temperature is the measure of heat and heat is energy. The equatorial zone accumulates surplus heat and much of it is converted into energy that mingles in the weathery troposphere. Cold, dense, polar air is drawn toward the equator, but the spinning earth veers these northsouth paths into the east west prevailing winds. The equator's rising air sets in motion an upstairs system of counter winds. These descend at certain latitudes and contribute more energy to the complex system of global circulation.