Summer solstice is the longest day/gets most direct sun light. Doesn’t that mean the warmest season is 1/8 year before and after it? So summer solstice should be the middle of summer instead, right? Or is there delay between sunlight hitting earth and earth getting warm?
In: Earth Science
The solstices are opposite for the northern and summer hemisphere because of the angle of tilt the Earth rotates on.
So, it’s the beginning of summer because that’s the point in the earth’s orbit that that hemisphere will have accumulated the most thermal energy to carry forward throughout the next ¼ of the year. Bodies of water, the ground, the air, everything has been warming up all spring long as the days lengthened. That has a cumulative effect that gets carried forward. But the day after the solstice the days start to get shorter, so the amount of thermal energy won’t increase beyond that point.
Think of the earth and it’s seasons like an oven. Spring is preheating, summer is actually cooking something. Fall is letting it cool back down, winter is completely cool.
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