The sum tool returns the sum of array elements over a given axis.
By default, the axis value is None. Therefore, it performs a sum over all the dimensions of the input array.
import numpy
my_array = numpy.array([ [1, 2], [3, 4] ])
print numpy.sum(my_array, axis = 0) #Output : [4 6]
print numpy.sum(my_array, axis = 1) #Output : [3 7]
print numpy.sum(my_array, axis = None) #Output : 10
print numpy.sum(my_array) #Output : 10