Image:SeasonDuration.jpg

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Image
File history
File links

Size of this preview: 800 × 285 pixel
Image in higher resolution (948 × 338 pixel, file size: 142 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg)

This image was uploaded in the JPEG format. However, it contains information that could be stored more efficiently or more accurately in the PNG format or SVG format. If possible, please upload a PNG or SVG version of this image, derived from a non-JPEG source so that it doesn't contain any compression artifacts (or with existing artifacts removed) and with transparency where appropriate. After doing so, please replace all instances of the JPEG version throughout Wikipedia (noted under the "File links" header), tag the JPEG version with {{obsolete|NewImage.ext}}, and remove this tag. For more information, see Wikipedia:Preparing images for upload.

[edit] Summary

I made this chart from data found on the US Naval Observatory site. It shows the durations of the seasons. The season lengths are different because Orbital mechanics require that the length of the seasons be proportional to the areas of the seasonal quadrants, so when the eccentricity is extreme, the seasons on the far side of the orbit can be substantially longer in duration. Today, when fall and winter occur at closest approach, the earth is moving at its maximum velocity and therefore fall and winter are slightly shorter than spring and summer. Today, summer is 4.66 days longer than winter and spring is 2.9 days longer than fall.

The source web page is: http://members.aol.com/gregbenson/iceage.htm GregBenson 18:14, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Licensing

I, the creator of this work, hereby grant the permission to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.
Subject to disclaimers.

File history

Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version.
Click on date to download the file or see the image uploaded on that date.

(del) (cur) 18:14, 10 September 2006 . . GregBenson (Talk | contribs) . . 948×338 (145,718 bytes) (I made this chart from data found on the US Naval Observatory site. It shows the durations of the seasons. The season lengths are different because Orbital mechanics require that the length of the seasons be proportional to the areas of the seasonal qua)