Jump to content

December solstice

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Sea29 (talk | contribs) at 12:42, 27 July 2017. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

UT date and time of
equinoxes and solstices on Earth[1][2]
event equinox solstice equinox solstice
month March[3] June[4] September[5] December[6]
year day time day time day time day time
2019 20 21:58 21 15:54 23 07:50 22 04:19
2020 20 03:50 20 21:43 22 13:31 21 10:03
2021 20 09:37 21 03:32 22 19:21 21 15:59
2022 20 15:33 21 09:14 23 01:04 21 21:48
2023 20 21:25 21 14:58 23 06:50 22 03:28
2024 20 03:07 20 20:51 22 12:44 21 09:20
2025 20 09:02 21 02:42 22 18:20 21 15:03
2026 20 14:46 21 08:25 23 00:06 21 20:50
2027 20 20:25 21 14:11 23 06:02 22 02:43
2028 20 02:17 20 20:02 22 11:45 21 08:20
2029 20 08:01 21 01:48 22 17:37 21 14:14

The December solstice, also known as the southern solstice, is the solstice that occurs each December, typically between the 20th and the 22nd day of the month according to the Gregorian calendar. In the southern hemisphere, the December solstice is the summer solstice, whilst in the northern hemisphere it is the winter solstice.

Dates

Recent past and future dates and times, in Universal Time, of the December solstice are: [7]

  • 2000-12-21 13:37
  • 2001-12-21 19:21
  • 2002-12-22 01:14
  • 2003-12-22 07:04
  • 2004-12-21 12:42
  • 2005-12-21 18:35
  • 2006-12-22 00:22
  • 2007-12-22 06:08
  • 2008-12-21 12:04
  • 2009-12-21 17:47
  • 2010-12-21 23:38
  • 2011-12-22 05:30
  • 2012-12-21 11:12
  • 2013-12-21 17:11
  • 2014-12-21 23:03
  • 2015-12-22 04:48
  • 2016-12-21 10:44
  • 2017-12-21 16:28
  • 2018-12-21 22:23
  • 2019-12-22 04:19
  • 2020-12-21 10:02

Solar year

The December solstice solar year is the solar year based on the December solstice. It is thus the length of time between adjacent December solstices.

The length of the December solstice year has been relatively stable between 6000 BC and 2000 at 49:30 (minutes:seconds) to 50:00 in excess of 365 days and 5 hours. After 2000 it is getting shorter. In 4000 the excess time will be 48:52 and in 10000 46:45.[8]

The length of the day on December solstice

The following tables contain information on the length of the day on December 22nd, close to the winter solstice of the Northern Hemisphere and the summer solstice of the Southern Hemisphere (i.e. December solstice). The data was collected from the website of the Finnish Meteorological Institute on 22 December 2015, as well as from certain other websites.[9][10][11][12][13][14]

The data is arranged geographically and within the tables from the shortest day to the longest one.

The Nordic countries, Russia, and the Baltic states
City Sunrise
21 Dec 2022 		Sunset
21 Dec 2022 		Length of the day
Russia Murmansk — — 0 min
Russia Apatity — — 0 min
Norway Bodø 11:35 12:24 49 min
Finland Rovaniemi 11:07 13:22 2 h 15 min
Sweden Luleå 9:54 13:03 3 h 9 min
Iceland Reykjavík 11:21 15:29 4 h 8 min
Norway Trondheim 10:01 14:31 4 h 30 min
Faroe Islands Tórshavn 9:50 14:59 5 h 9 min
Finland Helsinki 9:23 15:12 5 h 49 min
Norway Oslo 9:17 15:11 5 h 54 min
Estonia Tallinn 9:17 15:20 6 h 3 min
Sweden Stockholm 8:43 14:47 6 h 4 min
Latvia Riga 8:59 15:43 6 h 44 min
Denmark Copenhagen 8:36 15:38 7 h 2 min
Lithuania Vilnius 8:39 15:53 7 h 14 min
Europe
City Sunrise
22 Dec 2015 		Sunset
22 Dec 2015 		Length of the day
Russia Saint Petersburg 10:00 15:53 5 h 53 min
United Kingdom Edinburgh 8:42 15:40 6 h 57 min
Russia Moscow 8:57 15:58 7 h 00 min
Germany Berlin 8:15 15:54 7 h 39 min
Poland Warsaw 7:43 15:25 7 h 42 min
United Kingdom London 8:04 15:53 7 h 49 min
Ukraine Kyiv 7:56 15:56 8 h 00 min
France Paris 8:41 16:56 8 h 14 min
Austria Vienna 7:42 16:03 8 h 20 min
Hungary Budapest 7:28 15:55 8 h 26 min
Italy Rome 7:34 16:42 9 h 07 min
Spain Madrid 8:34 17:51 9 h 17 min
Portugal Lisbon 7:51 17:18 9 h 27 min
Greece Athens 7:37 17:09 9 h 31 min
Africa
City Sunrise
22 Dec 2015 		Sunset
22 Dec 2015 		Length of the day
Egypt Cairo 6:47 16:59 10 h 12 min
Spain Tenerife 7:53 18:13 10 h 19 min
Senegal Dakar 7:30 18:46 11 h 15 min
Ethiopia Addis Ababa 6:35 18:11 11 h 36 min
Kenya Nairobi 6:25 18:37 12 h 11 min
Democratic Republic of the Congo Kinshasa 5:45 18:08 12 h 22 min
Tanzania Dar es Salaam 6:05 18:36 12 h 31 min
Angola Luanda 5:46 18:24 12 h 38 min
Madagascar Antananarivo 5:10 18:26 13 h 16 min
Namibia Windhoek 6:04 19:35 13 h 31 min
South Africa Johannesburg 5:12 18:59 13 h 47 min
South Africa Cape Town 5:32 19:57 14 h 25 min
Middle East
City Sunrise
22 Dec 2015 		Sunset
22 Dec 2015 		Length of the day
Iran Tehran 7:10 16:55 9 h 44 min
Lebanon Beirut 6:39 16:33 9 h 54 min
Iraq Baghdad 7:02 16:59 9 h 57 min
Israel Jerusalem 6:35 16:39 10 h 04 min
Bahrain Manama 6:21 16:51 10 h 30 min
Qatar Doha 6:15 16:49 10 h 34 min
United Arab Emirates Dubai 7:00 17:34 10 h 34 min
Saudi Arabia Riyadh 6:32 17:10 10 h 37 min
Oman Muscat 6:43 17:23 10 h 41 min
Yemen Sana'a 6:25 17:38 11 h 13 min
Americas
City Sunrise
22 Dec 2015 		Sunset
22 Dec 2015 		Length of the day
Canada Inuvik — — 0 h
United States Fairbanks 10:58 14:40 3 h 41 min
Greenland Nuuk 10:22 14:28 4 h 06 min
United States Anchorage 10:14 15:42 5 h 27 min
Canada Edmonton 8:48 16:15 7 h 27 min
Canada Vancouver 8:05 16:16 8 h 11 min
United States Seattle 7:55 16:20 8 h 25 min
Canada Ottawa 7:39 16:22 8 h 42 min
Canada Toronto 7:48 16:43 8 h 55 min
United States New York City 7:16 16:32 9 h 15 min
United States Washington, D.C. 7:23 16:49 9 h 26 min
United States Los Angeles 6:55 16:48 9 h 53 min
United States Dallas 7:25 17:25 9 h 59 min
United States Miami 7:03 17:35 10 h 31 min
United States Honolulu 7:04 17:55 10 h 50 min
Mexico Mexico City 7:06 18:03 10 h 57 min
Nicaragua Managua 6:01 17:26 11 h 24 min
Colombia Bogotá 5:59 17:50 11 h 51 min
Ecuador Quito 6:08 18:16 12 h 08 min
Brazil Recife 5:00 17:35 12 h 35 min
Peru Lima 5:41 18:31 12 h 50 min
Bolivia La Paz 5:57 19:04 13 h 06 min
Brazil Rio de Janeiro 6:04 19:37 13 h 33 min
Brazil São Paulo 6:17 19:52 13 h 35 min
United States Salt Lake City 7:48 17:03 9 h 14 min
Brazil Porto Alegre 6:20 20:25 14 h 05 min
Chile Santiago 6:29 20:52 14 h 22 min
Argentina Buenos Aires 5:37 20:06 14 h 28 min
Argentina Ushuaia 4:51 22:11 17 h 19 min
Asia-Pacific
City Sunrise
22 Dec 2015 		Sunset
22 Dec 2015 		Length of the day
Russia Magadan 8:54 14:55 6 h 00 min
Russia Petropavlovsk 9:36 17:10 7 h 33 min
Russia Khabarovsk 8:48 17:07 8 h 18 min
Mongolia Ulaanbaatar 8:39 17:02 8 h 22 min
Russia Vladivostok 8:40 17:40 8 h 59 min
China Beijing 7:32 16:52 9 h 20 min
South Korea Seoul 7:44 17:17 9 h 34 min
Japan Tokyo 6:47 16:31 9 h 44 min
China Shanghai 6:48 16:55 10 h 07 min
China Lhasa 8:46 19:01 10 h 14 min
India Delhi 7:09 17:28 10 h 19 min
Hong Kong Hong Kong 6:58 17:44 10 h 46 min
Philippines Manila 6:16 17:32 11 h 15 min
Thailand Bangkok 6:36 17:55 11 h 19 min
Singapore Singapore 7:01 19:04 12 h 03 min
Indonesia Jakarta 5:36 18:05 12 h 28 min
Indonesia Denpasar 5:58 18:36 12 h 37 min
Australia Darwin 6:19 19:10 12 h 51 min
French Polynesia Papeete 5:21 18:32 13 h 10 min
Australia Brisbane 4:49 18:42 13 h 52 min
Australia Perth 5:07 19:22 14 h 14 min
Australia Sydney 5:41 20:05 14 h 24 min
New Zealand Auckland 5:58 20:39 14 h 41 min
Australia Melbourne 5:54 20:42 14 h 47 min
New Zealand Dunedin 5:43 21:28 15 h 44 min
New Zealand Invercargill 5:50 21:39 15 h 48 min

Human culture

Calendars

Gregorian calendar
Gregorian calendar
Iranian (Persian) calendar
Iranian (Persian) calendar

The figures in the charts show the differences between the Gregorian calendar and Persian Jalāli calendar in reference to the actual yearly time of the Southern solstice. The error shifts by slightly less than 1/4 day per year; in the Gregorian calendar it is corrected by a leap year every 4th year, omitting three such corrections in every 400 years, so that the average length of a calendar year is 365 97/400 days; while in the Persian calendar every eighth leap-cycle is extended to 5 years, making the average 365 8/33 days, shorter than the Gregorian average by one day every 13200 years.

The date of the solstice is not the same as the date of the latest sunrise and both are not the same as the date of earliest sunset. Because the Earth is moving along its solar orbital path, for each solar day the Earth has to do more than one full rotation. Because the Earth's orbit is elliptical, the speed at which the Earth moves along its orbit varies. Consequently, solar days are not the same length throughout the year. "Mean time" is our way of modifying this, for our convenience, making each day the same length, i.e. 24 hours. The maximum correction (see Equation of Time) is ± 15 minutes to the mean but its value changes quite rapidly around the solstices. If solar time were used rather than mean time, the latest sunrise and earliest sunset and therefore also the shortest day would all be at the December solstice in the northern hemisphere; the opposite would be true in the southern hemisphere, with the earliest sunrise, latest sunset, and longest day.

Commemorations

See also: Winter solstice

References

  1. ^ Astronomical Applications Department of USNO. "Earth's Seasons - Equinoxes, Solstices, Perihelion, and Aphelion". Retrieved 2022-08-01.
  2. ^ "Solstices and Equinoxes: 2001 to 2100". AstroPixels.com. 20 February 2018. Retrieved 21 December 2018.
  3. ^ Équinoxe de printemps entre 1583 et 2999
  4. ^ Solstice d’été de 1583 à 2999
  5. ^ Équinoxe d’automne de 1583 à 2999
  6. ^ Solstice d’hiver
  7. ^ Earth's Seasons — Naval Oceanography Portal
  8. ^ Bromberg, Irv. "Solar Year Length Variations on Earth" (PDF). University of Toronto, Canada. Retrieved 21 December 2012.
  9. ^ "Paikallissää Helsinki" [‘Local weather in Helsinki’] (in Finnish). Finnish Meteorological Institute. 2015-12-22. Retrieved 2015-12-22.
  10. ^ "Perth, Australia". Retrieved 2015-12-22.
  11. ^ "São Paulo, Brazil". Retrieved 2015-12-22.
  12. ^ "Denpasar, Indonesia". Retrieved 2015-12-22.
  13. ^ "Edmonton, Canada". Retrieved 2019-12-21.
  14. ^ "Inuvik, Canada". Retrieved 2020-12-19. "Saint-Petersburg, Russia". Retrieved 2024-06-16.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=December_solstice&oldid=792594016"