Why are there less hours from sunrise to noon than from noon to sunset?

Answer 1

noon is just a name we give to the time, and doesnt necesarily correlate with the location of the sun.

Answer 2

It pretty much depends on where you are in your time zone. A place in the eastern part of the time zone will get a much earlier sunrise/sunset than someone in the extreme west but they share the same noon.

Answer 3

Daylight savings. The hours get shifted about to some beuraucrats wishes so they're atually out of step with the solar position, check a sundial if you want the time according to the sun.

Answer 4

This has to do with the reason we have different seasons.... something we call axial tilt, the Earth's axis isn't perpendicular to its orbit (not that the orbit is completely level either), and that is how we get shorter days in the winter and longer days in the summer, and on the vernal and autumnal equinoxes we get equal amounts of sunlight.

Answer 5

Whether the period from sunrise to noon is longer or shorter than the period from noon to sunset depends on where in your time zone you are, where the earth is in its orbit, and whether your area is observing daylight saving time.

The time zones are in theory centered on lines of longitude 15 degrees apart, with Greenwich Mean Time centered on longitude 0 (running through a point near London), and successive one-hour time zones to the west centered on 15W, 30W, 45W, 60W, 75W, 90W, 105W, and 120W. 75W is Eastern Time and 120W is Pacific Time.

If the earth's orbit were perfectly circular then the sun would reach its zenith (highest point in the sky) at noon local time for an observer on any of these lines of longitude. Each 15 degrees of longitude is a difference of one hour of time, so one degree equals 4 minutes (60/15) of sun time. If you were at 46W, 61W, 76W, 106W, or 121W, but observing the time of your time zone, you would see the sun cross the zenith at 12:04 instead of at 12:00. Similarly if you were at 44W or 59W (one degree east of the central meridian for your time zone) you would see the sun cross at 11:56.

If you are at a central meridian you would observe the time before clock noon to be about the same as the time after clock noon. If you are east of the central meridian for your time zone, the sun hits its high point before noon, so you would see the afternoons as longer than the mornings. If you are west of the central meridian for your time zone, you would see the mornings as longer than the afternoons.

Daylight Saving Time messes this up by setting clocks forward 1 hour. The result is that at a time zone's central meridian, the sun is at its highest point at about 1:00 instead of at about 12:00. Here's another way to think of it. If you're in Chicago observing Central Time, and you switch to DST, what you're really doing is observing Eastern Time. You're now about 15 degrees farther west of your time zone meridian (because you're using the Eastern meridian, 75W, instead of the Central meridian, 90W) so you're going to see the sun hit its high point much later than noon, in fact, about 1:00. This means that the time from sunrise to noon will be about two hours less than the time after noon to sunset (one hour that you took away from the morning and one hour added to the afternoon).

The earth's orbit is not circular, but elliptical, and the earth moves fastest in its orbit when it's closest to the sun. This is in the months of December, January, and February, roughly. (Perihelion is about January 8 or 9.) The earth moves slowest when its farthest from the sun, in June, July, and August. When the earth moves fastest, the time from one noon to the next is less than 24 hours. When it moves slowest, the time from one noon to the next is more than 24 hours. As a result solar noon can vary by up to about 20 minutes from clock noon. It's shown by the distorted figure 8 (the analemma) on your globe.

The sun is not a very good timekeeper. As Hilaire Belloc said, "I am a sundial / And I make a botch / Of what is done far better by a watch."

[ADDED: see the link below for some further information about my slander of sundials.]

Answer 6

it's a new E.U. regulation, to benefit mediterranean folk, so they get longer siestas.

Answer 7

depends what part of the world you live.

Answer 8

is it cos we are on a tilt?

(you see how i answered your Q with a Q! im good at that!)

Answer 9

eeermmmmmmmm........welllll.......errrrrrrr.............
I'll get back to you