How does day and night work in the north and south poles?

Question

Any good sites for this subject, information on seasons in the artics (Summer,Autumn e.t.c)

Answer 1

The Earth is tilted at an angle of about twenty three and a half degrees. This is the reason why North and Magnetic poles are not at the same place.

Anyway, in the Northern winter, the North Pole is angled away from the Sun, with the South Pole therefore being angled towards the Sun. The result is 24 hours night in the north, 24 hours day light in the south. This is the southern summer.
Now remember that the Earth maintains this angle throughout its orbit.
Six months later, the Earth is on the other side of its orbit around the Sun. Still maintaining the same tilt, now the North Pole is receiving 24 hour day light, and the South Pole is in darkness. Northern summer, southern winter.

The Arctic and Antarctic circles mark the limit of this 24 hour daylight, and the Tropic of Cancer (North) and the Tropic of Capricorn (South) mark the limits of the maximum travel of the Sun at it appears in the northern and southern skies.

At the Spring and Autumn exquinox, the Earth is such that the Poles are receiving equal amounts of sunlight. Equinox means "equal night".

I down know any particular websites but try the NOAA and BBC weather sites.

ADDITION: To Glenn Blaylock. Thank you very much for the correction. I'll read up on my error.

Answer 2

Hi all

I have been working in northern russia for the last two years and have been up there in the summer and winter. In july and August the sun stays up all the time. At mid day its about 60 degrees above the horizon.It goes down towardss the west but doesnt go below the horizon and you get a low light (a bit like late on a summer evening). The russian call it a white night, its light enough to read a book or take a photograph without the flash. it stays like that and the sun then tracks around the horizon to the south until it gets into the East and then it rises again. it seems that there is no night and is quite disorientating. In Dec and Jan the opposite effect occurs and the sun never comes over the horizon but you get a kind of twighlight at midday and you can see the glow of the sun below the horizon (if its not snowing!). In between the light is either coming or going. It occurs because the earth tilts on its axis. During the summer the pole is tilted towards the light in the winter its tilted away.If you mark a basket ball with the poles and shine a torch at the circumference you can see the effect if you tilt the ball towards or away from the torch.

Answer 3

I will talk about South Pole, since I've been there. But north would be the same.

At the South Pole there is 1 day and 1 night each year. When the sun is up is just cricles aourn the sky once every 24 hours. It is actually slowly spiralling up and then down so that in 6 months it goes from sunrise to sunset.

At sunset the sun circles around right on the horizon, until after a few days it disappears. There is a few weeks of twilight after sunset, and before sunrise. So it is only really dark for about 4-5 months.

You can see some time lapse video I did at Pole at
http://antarctica.kulgun.net/Movies/spiff.shtml
Where you can sort of see this.

Answer 4

At the North Pole, on the date of the Spring Equinox (on or around March 21), during 24 hours the Sun would appear to sit about half above the horizon, tracing a course round the full 360 gegrees of the horizon. Each day it would climb a little higher in the sky, circling 23.5deg above the horizon on or near June 21 (Summer Solstice in the Northern hemisphere). It would spiral down again to sit half above the horizon around September 21 and would disappear altogether a few days later. That's the last you'd see of it until a few days before the next Spring Equinox.

At the South Pole of course the dates would be reversed, with the "high point" on Dec. 21.

Answer 5

As a person who actually teaches this stuff at the college level, let me just state that 13caesars's answer is mostly correct. (I don't know why anyone has given him a negative rating.) The only problem that I have with his answer is his statement that Earth's tilt is why it's geographic and magnetic poles are not aligned. This is not why this is the case. The reason for the difference in the positions of these poles has to do with the way the magnetic field is generated in Earth's outer core. However, I am not going to go into any more detail on this as that really isn't part of this question. I just wanted to briefly correct that one erroneous statement. Other than that, 13caesars answer is very good.

Answer 6

Over the direction of a few days based around each equinox, the two poles will get carry of a few image voltaic through fact the disc of the sunlight stradles the horizon. Atmospheric refraction might amplify this era to as much as 3 weeks. undergo in ideas, daybreak and sunset on the poles are not through fact of Earth's rotation, they're through sunlight's declination.

Answer 7

What do you mean by how do they work? I live almost on the North Pole with Santa Claus, I think our days and nights work just like anywhere else in the world. We do have very long nights in the winter though and endless daylight in the summer. The seasons are a little more complicated. We can have all four seasons in one day but then our summers can be like mild winters.

Answer 8

Well it doesn't does it. It is either almost constant day or constant night except when the sun is overhead at the equator when there is anything like a 12 hour night and day.

Answer 9

THEY DONT,THEY ARE ON THE SOCIAL.