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I’ve just never understood why there’s such a vast difference between summer and winter sunsets. We only change our clock forward / back an hour, but the sun sets at 5, when it use to set at 9?
In: Earth Science
The Equinox’ are the only 2 days every year with exactly the same time of day (12hours day and 12 hours night). From the summer to the winter equinox, the days get shorter because the sun rises later and sets sooner (due to the angle of the earth in relation to the sun. It goes opposite for the southern hemisphere, that’s why they have summer while we have winter). From the winter to the summer, they days start getting longer again.
With the combination of the sun setting sooner every day (about 2 minutes) and the clock going back an hour, the sunset and sunrise vary by about 3-4 hours throughout the year.
Well, you need to remember that your figure of 5 hours is specific to your location (or at least your latitude). Different latitudes have different amounts of difference between summer and winter.
DST/Summer clock change is complicated enough, there is no point to further complicate things by having different places change different numbers of hours.
Plus it becomes completely useless in the polar regions anyway. And in the tropics, it is more disruptive than it is helpful, since there is little to no difference between summer and winter sunrise/sunset times.
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