In a one year period, do you have more hours of sunlight in the northern hemisphere or southern?

Question

Assume no clouds or bad weather.

Answer 1

I dunno, the Earth is moving slightly slower in the northern summer, due to being further away, therefore biasing the north to a little more sunlight. Maybe a high arctic mountain.




No place on Earth gets less than half, due to atmospheric refraction and the Sun being a disc. (and twilight)

Answer 2

If you are interested in milliseconds difference between the Northern or Souther Hemisphere I think this would be an extremely difficult calculation.

Because the distance of the earth to the sun is shorter during the Northern Hemisphere's winter, and further during the summer (see link below) the farther the sun is from the earth, the more of the earth will be exposed to sunlight at any time.
http://www.earthsky.org/radioshows/50707/earth-nearest-sun-plus-full-moon-on-january-3

You can show this using a large ball and a flashlight. If you hold the flashlight an inch from the ball, very little of the ball will see "direct sunlight" whereas if you hold the flashlight 10 yards away from the ball virtually half of the ball will see "sunlight" at any one time, This experiment suggests that more of the total globe will receive sunlight during the summer than the winter since the sun is further from the earth in the summer.

The calculation is complicated by the fact that the sun is large enough that you could not consider it a point source, but I think the only way to determine how much sunlight is obtained by the northern and southern hemispheres is to calculate each days sunlight by latitude.

One other complicating factor enters in, that could shift the answer in the direction of the northern hemisphere, Peaks will receive more sunlight than valleys. The sun will rise earlier in the morning and set later in the evening.

There are quite a few great mountain ranges in the Northern Hemisphere.

I'd lay my money on the Norther hemisphere for the greater hours of sunlight but the calculation is beyond my capabilities!

Answer 3

Equal number of hours. But the southern hemisphere receives less energy, because it receives its most direct light when the earth is most distant from the sun. When the earth is closest to the sun, the axis of rotation is tilted to make the sun's rays shine on the southern hemisphere at a flatter angle. More energy is absorbed and disipated by the atmosphere.

Answer 4

earth has an odd number of days in a year and therefore it alternates by one hour every year. according to our calandar.
acording to the actual orbit though and to conform our calandar to the actual orbit we must incorporate a thing called a leap year. lol now i confused myself.