1.**Why is Antarctica much colder than the Arctic? ** After all, their relative positions during the opposite solstices with respect to the sun are the same aren’t they?
2.It is now (April 21) 1 month since the spring equinox, and north of the 49th parallel, it still doesn’t feel like summer. The equivalent length of day and/or angle of sun light will again occur July 21, yet we can expect much warmer temperatures, and summer conditions to persist for another 6 weeks or thereabouts. Why?
Do Australians/New Zealanders experience the same seasonal delay?
I wasn’t aware that Antarctica is much colder than the Arctic. Maybe because its elevation is much higher?
The sun will be at the same angle as today (April 21) on August 19, not July 21. It’s now one month after the spring equinox, and you’ll see the sun in the same place one month before the autumnal equinox.
Seasons are delayed from the soltices and equinoxes because it takes a while for the local area to warm up. The sun is highest in the sky around June 20, so you might think that summer should be centered around that date, but because of the delayed effect, we usually consider summer to be June 1 through August 31, which is offset by about 25 days. Same with the other seasons.
I think that would do it. If I recall correctly, the average height of the entire Antarctic continent/ice shelf is like 7000 feet or something (I forget the exact number, I just remember it’s in the higher-thousands).
Perhaps it also has something to do with the fact that the Antarctic has land underneath it, while the Arctic is simply a slab of ice covering an ocean? I don’t know how that would result in a colder climate, but that’s another difference between the two locales that may have an effect.
Summer solstice in the Southern Hemisphere is December 21, the so-called longest day of the year. But December is the first official month of Summer, and usually relatively mild whencompared to the latter portion of Summer.
Traditionally January and February are the hottest months of the year in southern Australia, six to eight weeks after the solstice.
Antarctica is way colder than the Arctic, because (a) the Arctic is an ocean basin and water has a much higher specific heat than land, and (b) because of altitude, and a lapse rate of 6-8 degrees C per kilometer.