Posted on 01/02/2021 11:19:32 AM PST by BenLurkin
Although sunlight is more intense on Saturday, winter in the Northern Hemisphere is unaffected, due to the 23.5-degree tilt of Earth's axis. Being closer to the sun does not change the Earth's tilt, so the North Pole is still tilted away from the sun.
Six months from now, on July 5, Earth will be at its farthest from the sun, known as its aphelion, meaning "far from the sun." At perihelion, Earth is about 91.5 million miles from the sun, and at aphelion, it is around 94.5 million miles away.
Between perihelion and aphelion, there is about a 6.7% difference in the intensity of the sunlight as it hits our planet. According to NASA, this is one explanation for more extreme seasons in the Southern Hemisphere compared to the Northern Hemisphere.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
This is why the northern hemisphere is preferable to the southern, milder seasons.
And the fact that there are more oceans in the southern hemisphere is more evidence of God’s creation. This is a fine tuned planetary condition for life.
I was told January 3rd in 2007...
Quick, somebody call Al Gore....
Maybe it’s due to leap year...
I’ve been feeling like Hellions were all around.
On January 20th, the government will be closer to Uranus than ever in history...
Still cold here in Louisiana. 8>)
The Solar Year, or the time between noon on the longest days (The Summer Solstice ) is 365.24219 days. The time it takes for Earth to orbit the Sun is 365.256363004 days. The difference is because of the precession of the equinoxes.
The image above shows the point on the Celestial Sphere where the stars appear to rotate based on the years between the year 2000 and year predicted. The cycle repeats approximately every 26000 years.
Look up Milankovitch cycles. The reason why we are in the mmidsdle of a 20,000 year interglacial is that we are in a period of the Milankovitch cycle with suffficient rotational axis tilt, where the orbital perihelion points the southern oceans at the sun during their summers. Southern oceans absorb far more heat than northern continents.
Must be why we warmed up to -5 here in Fairbanks!
Also, as the Earth's rotation and orbit precesses, we keep the calendar aligned with the seasons rather than the perihelion and aphelion, so they shift forward about a day every 58 years.
Year | Perihelion | Distance | Aphelion | Distance |
---|---|---|---|---|
2021 | January 2, 2021 8:50 am | 91,399,454 mi | July 5, 2021 6:27 pm | 94,510,886 mi |
2022 | January 4, 2022 1:52 am | 91,406,842 mi | July 4, 2022 3:10 am | 94,509,598 mi |
2023 | January 4, 2023 11:17 am | 91,403,034 mi | July 6, 2023 4:06 pm | 94,506,364 mi |
2024 | January 2, 2024 7:38 pm | 91,404,095 mi | July 5, 2024 1:06 am | 94,510,539 mi |
2025 | January 4, 2025 8:28 am | 91,405,993 mi | July 3, 2025 3:54 pm | 94,502,939 mi |
* All aphelion/perihelion times are in local Eastern time. |
Then why isn’t it warmer?
:-)
Although it explains why it is so windy;
;-)
(Wind From the Sun / Sunjammer was one of my favorite Arthur C. Clarke stories)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunjammer
Thank you for the information.
pre-teen giggles?? we still get those on this board!
FTA: closer to the sun than on any other day of the year
How do we know we won’t fall into the Sun and burn up?
Thanks for the tip on Milankovitch cycles! The ideas seem intuitive.
There’s not much habitable land in the Southern temperate/frigid zones.
Cape Town - 64/45 in July
Buenos Aires - 58/47
Sydney - 63/47
Perth - 65/46
Auckland - 58/46
McMurdo Station Antarctica appears to have colder winters than Thule Air Base Greenland though.
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