# 'The Limit of the Heat'?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-limit-of-the-heat/947671>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 30, 2021, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-limit-of-the-heat/947671 "2021-07-30T21:28:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\
**Post date:** [August 2, 2021, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-limit-of-the-heat/947671/21 "2021-08-02T13:46:44Z")

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> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#):
>
> The earth is tilted with respect to it’s orientation to the sun. This is the reason we have seasons; in the summer in the Northern Hemisphere, the sun appears to be higher overhead. The sun gives more energy to the earth in the form of heat when it is higher overhead. This causes higher temperatures in the summer. Also, the longest day occurs on June 21, summer in the northern hemisphere. The hottest part of the year actually occurs a bit after the summer equinox on June 21. This is because it takes some time for the earth and oceans to warm up. This is known as the lag of the seasons.

AKA Hysteresis

> **[Hysteresis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hysteresis)**
>
> Hysteresis is the dependence of the state of a system on its history. For example, a magnet may have more than one possible magnetic moment in a given magnetic field, depending on how the field changed in the past. Plots of a single component of the moment often form a loop or hysteresis curve, where there are different values of one variable depending on the direction of change of another variable. This history dependence is the basis of memory in a hard disk drive and the remanence that retains...

As long as there is still sufficient heat input past the peak of heat input (which there is, because peak input is beyond the input level necessary for balance), the system will continue to get warmer.

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**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\
**Post date:** [August 3, 2021, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-limit-of-the-heat/947671/22 "2021-08-03T14:33:45Z")

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So is the longest day (solstice) also the point in the year when the Northern Hemisphere receives the most direct solar radiation (i.e. tilted more toward the sun)?

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**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\
**Post date:** [August 3, 2021, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-limit-of-the-heat/947671/23 "2021-08-03T15:07:58Z")

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All other variables being equal, yes, because the daylength is longest (longest period of input) and the angle of inclination is highest (so the radiation intensity is highest).

To express the hysteresis thing a different way: Assuming the days before(-1) and after(+1) the longest day are equal, and there was enough solar radiation on day -1 to make get warmer, then it should also get warmer on day +1

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