Happy Solstice!!!

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

Does the rate of change stay consistent . Do we pick up more sunlight per day right after the solstice or around the equinox?

[murrie]

Now that is funny right there!!

[djf]

At solstice, the change is pretty slow - only a few seconds per day.

But by the time equinox gets here, the change is the largest it will get - over 3 minutes per day.

Which doesn’t sound like a lot, but 3 weeks at 3 minutes per day is a bit more than an hour change of daylight.

These numbers are latitude related - the change at or near the equator is almost negligible.

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

Thanks. So the short days are going to seem like they drag on forever. Too bad Obama doesn’t sign an executive order reversing this law of nature.

[Blackirish]

You could always move Rosie O’Donnell to even out the earth’s equilibrium. I understand her head has it’s own gravitational pull.

[djf]

If you like your sunshine, you get to keep your sunshine...

Thank God somebody way bigger than Zero and the Congressrats set it up. Otherwise, it would have been screwed up to the max a long, long time ago!

[FroggyTheGremlim]

Actually, the date of the earliest sunset is long passed - Dec 8 this year.

I have been checking the sunset times in Pittsburgh. Here they are:

  Date     Sunset
20131209 - 4:53
20131210 - 4:53
20131211 - 4:53
20131212 - 4:53
20131213 - 4:53
20131214 - 4:53
20131215 - 4:54
20131216 - 4:54
20131217 - 4:54
20131218 - 4:55
20131219 - 4:55
20131220 - 4:56
20131221 - 4:56

Note that the sunset seems to be accelerating towards the later.

Although the solstice has the shortest amount of daylight, the later time of sunset seems to make the day longer.

I'm not sure why this is - I think it has to do with the non-sphericity of the earth.

And it only holds for the Northern Hemisphere.