The annual range of temperature in the interior of the continents is high as compared to coastal…

Answer: (a) 1 only

Land heats up and cools down quickly, while the sea does both slowly. So places far from the sea swing between hot summers and cold winters, while coasts stay moderate. Of the reasons listed, only this land–water thermal difference explains the pattern.

• ✓ 1. Land warms and cools fast, while water warms and cools slowly. Interiors therefore have a large gap between the warmest and coldest months, while the nearby sea moderates temperatures at the coast. This effect is called continentality. It is why north-eastern Eurasia records an annual range of more than 60°C.
• ✗ 2. Altitude lowers temperature with height, at about 6.5°C per 1,000 m. That affects how cold a place is overall, not the gap between its summer and winter temperatures. The contrast between interiors and coasts comes from distance from the sea, not from height.
• ✗ 3. Strong winds in the interior are not what creates the large annual range. The range comes from the unequal heating and cooling of land and water.
• ✗ 4. Continental interiors generally receive less rain than coasts, not more. Rainfall is not the cause of the large annual range; the cause is how quickly land gains and loses heat.

Remember · Continentality: land heats and cools quickly, water slowly. Continental interiors such as Siberia have a large annual range of temperature, while coasts have a small one.

📘 Read it in NCERT: Class 11 Fundamentals of Physical Geography, Ch 8 (practise this chapter) · Class 11 Fundamentals of Physical Geography, Ch 8 (practise this chapter)

Question: UPSC Civil Services (Preliminary) 2013, General Studies paper. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 25 Oct 2026 (how we verify). · Report an error