Some of you may have noticed that I have changed my theme. It has moved from the rather dreary black onto something a little more cheerful and summery, and thereby somewhat reflecting my mood about being back in the southern hemisphere summer.
There is much debate about when summer actually begins (in my mind at least anyway). Some say that it begins at the start of December, while others say that it actually begins at the summer solstice i.e the longest day. From a strictly intuitive point of view I always thought that summer should be distributed equally either side of the summer solstice, therefore beginning sometime in November and ending sometime in February. My theory was - shouldn't it be the hottest when the day is at it's longest and the temperature decline roughly symmetrically around that date? Well, if we lived in a simple world this might have been the case and indeed as it turns out if it wasn't for that tricky old bugger the ocean, it would be like that. You see apparently the ocean has a delaying effect on the seasons so that it takes sometime after the ocean has absorbed the heat from the summer sun until the peak temperatures are reached. This effect is obviously most pronounced in island states like NZ and rather weak in central continental areas such as the middle of Europe or Canada. So the peak summer temperatures are more of a combination or when the sun is giving the most energy to the land and when the ocean has heated up enough so that it starts warming the surrounding air.
So the answer to when summer begins is not such a simple one, and I think depends on where you live. For that reason I am going to stick with summer beginning at the start of December and ending at the end of Feb. Too easy...
Gee, sorry for that rant. You might have gathered that I am sitting alone at home on a Friday night in the gathering gloom halfway through a six pack and having just downed a large pizza, doing what is effectively talking to myself. Asia is having a girls night out - I think it's in retribution for all those crazy insults in my last post, Ha!
Christmas is nearly here! Again! Man, what a crazy hectic year it has been. I'm looking forward to having a decent break at Christmas and catching up with friends and family...bring it on!
Okay well, I'm over talking to myself, on with other more important things, like beer for instance.
