Question about cause of winter

100% tilt since the tilt causes less daylight

The tilt causes less hours of daylight AND less intensity though. What amount of either of those causes winter... Is it primarily the intensity of those daylight hours being reduced, or is it because there's less of them?

No one has any insight?

Yes. It's 6 of tilt and half-dozen of daylight.

Seriously, it's the daylight time. if we didn't have planetary rotation and orbited the sun the way that the moon does Earth, the daylight side would be boiling even with the tilt, and the dark side would be freezing.

At the same time, the southern hemisphere would be hotter on the sun-side, and nearly as cold on the dark side at the same point in orbit. Then reverse it in 6 months.

Last Edited by MuzzleBreak on 11/22/2012 07:07 PM

You can suck air out of the poles to.

Thanks... for that last part, you're saying there'd be basically 2 seasons if there was no rotation -- boiling and freezing, respectively -- at a 6-month rotation of each? :)

That would basically be the case if there were absolutely no rotation of the Earth on its axis. If it were like the moon and always had the same side facing the center of its orbit (one rotation/yr), one side would be perpetually boiling, and the other freezing--no seasons at all.

Last Edited by MuzzleBreak on 11/22/2012 09:34 PM

Just thinking about this more and something isn't sitting with me -- the "daylight side would be boiling even with the tilt."

With no planetary rotation, if the earth is tilted away from the sun, for 6 months it's freezing, and for 6 months it's boiling (in south vs. north hemisphere respectively). It's also nighttime for 6 months and daytime for 6 months respectively.

So the tilt alone is causing a freeze during that 6 months in whichever hemisphere is tilted away, where it is night 24 hours per day. That same tilt creates boiling in the same area when the planet is on the other side of the sun.

The sun is hotter due to the tilt. You can sit outside July 4th in New York, and the sun is scorching, independent of the number of hours exposed. On January 4th, you hardly feel the heat of the sun.

So it can't be entirely a function of the number of daylight hours exposed, if the sun itself is not as hot. It has to be some combination(?)

i can assure you, the cause is 100% due to the complete lack of summer