Today is (was) the 21st June, and as you would have noticed the suns rays were perpendicular to the Tropic of Cancer (at 23°30′ North latitude). This means that the earth’s “circle of illumination” (i.e. it was light) all the way from the Arctic Circle to the Antarctic Circle.
So the equator received twelve hours of daylight, all of the North Pole and areas north of 66°30′ N have 24 hours of daylight and the equivalent area South has 24 hours of night.
So it is the summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, the longest day of sunlight (17h 35m 17s in Glasgow today) and of course the shortest night… (all explained really well here if you are interested)
Which made me think, it’s all a matter of perspective. In the North there’s more light, in the South there is less. Is it good to have more hours of daylight or is it bad because there are less hours of night? Does it make any difference at all since we don’t travel to Stonehenge, get up at dawn (which today was 4:31 AM in Glasgow) to look after the fields or animals or anything else that is governed by the sun?
More hours of sunlight simply means that from now on the nights are drawing in, it’s getting closer to winter and the best is behind us…. can you tell that I’ve got one of these:
the Pessimist’s Mug available from Despair.com
