kabouter wrote:
The Earth's orbit is elliptical, this is also the reason ( I think) we (in Sunny Australia) have different dates for the change of seasons.
What I mean is at the beginning of a month, rather than the 22/23 of the month.
I doubt thats the reason.They would start the seasons on the fifth of the month if that were the case. Its just breaking with traditon for convenience.
To reiterate: We are farthest from the Sun in Summer (barely a fortnight after the Summer Soltice,in fact), and closest to the sun in the dead of winter. But thats just 'we' in the Northern Hemisphere. You antipodians in the southern hemisphere have it the logical way- but its 'the right thing for the wrong reason'- closest in summer, but farthest in winter. But its the tilt of the earth that causes the change of seasons. Not the planet's distance from the Sun.
In most countries the public officials go along with nature and peg the seasons to the soltices and equinoxes (the changing lengths of the day) as humans have done for thousands of years. In Australia they just dispense with astronomy and peg the seasons the first of the month. In my mind summer does starts on June first ( I dont really wait until June 23rd to think of it as 'summer'), and apparently so do most consumers in every temperate zone country in both hemispheres because they start filling the stores with 'summer seasonal' merchandise in May. So Australia just goes with how most modern folks think, and divorces the seasons from the length of the day changes- and just declares that Summer starts on June first ( kinda like Buckminster Fuller who just declared that "Pi is exactly three").
05 Jul 2013, 1:26 pm
