Does anyone know if daylight hours in the Arctic have changed?

Question

I thought I read an answer from someone that said they lived near the North Pole and that they are getting more hours of daylight. I can't find it now, but I remember thinking how odd it was that a person who is a believer in AGW would say something like that.

Here's a link to a website listing sunrise and sunset times. The copyright at the bottom says 1999.

http://www.athropolis.com/sun-fr.htm

Gengi - If I could have found the answer that triggered this question I would be able to give you more details. But I could have sworn the person was claiming that they were getting more hours of daylight and that they lived near the North Pole.

Bob - I wasn't trying to prove anything with this question. I was just trying to figure out if what the person was saying was true. I haven't paid much attention to whether or not each day of the year had the exact same sunrise and sunset times. Or if they varied a little each year.

I know this year we had a change, because we changed when we were doing Daylight savings. It doesn't change what day is the shortest or which day is the longest, but the sunrise and sunset times would be different due to waiting one more week to turn our clocks back one hour.

gcnp58 - No I wasn't thinking about that, since here in Minnesota I felt fall finally had a chance to be fall, before winter came along. This question came up due to someone else giving a crazy answer that triggered my mind to chew on it and wonder why the person said it.

Bob - That's what I thought, since I figured I would have noticed something here in Minnesota. Nope! The sun still goes down around 4:30 PM in December. But it's only seven more days before the days start getting longer again.

Answer 1

Hey Mikira,

The tilt on Earths axis has been very stable for thousands of years, occasionally it wobbles and causes the poles to receive more or less sunlight throughout the seasonal cycles, but I do not believe there has been much variation within the time frame of human civilization.

Answer 2

Above the arctic circle it stays dark 24 hours during the winter, and it stays light 24 hours in the summer.

When lived in Oslo, the sun set at 11:30 at night, and rose at 3am in June!

Answer 3

Have you ever studied the Milankovitch Cycle?
http://www.fairbanks-alaska.com/arctic-circle-movement.htm
The tilt of the earth moves about 25' every year - so there would be slightly more / less sun at one pole or the other.

Answer 4

You might be thinking of the research that shows length of the seasons are changing, spring is coming earlier, fall is later,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2006/aug/25/climatechange.climatechangeenvironment

http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0619-arctic.html

http://www.climateark.org/blog/2007/06/arctic_spring_a_month_early.asp

But that doesn't mean the length of daylight is different.

Answer 5

there is no way global warming affects daylight hours. whoever said that was not referencing global warming, but rather natural process due to earths orbit

Answer 6

Of course not.

So one person said something dumb? What, exactly, does that prove that's of any importance at all?

Dumb things are said here all the time. Like "there is no proof of global warming", when there's tons of solid proof:

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html
summarized at:
http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

and EVERY major scientific organization says it's real and mostly caused by us.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change

Good websites for more info:

http://profend.com/global-warming/
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/
http://www.realclimate.org
"climate science from climate scientists"
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11462

EDIT OK, here's an answer. It's not true. There are no more hours of daylight in the Arctic. Any "change in the Earth's inclination" is utterly trivial, altering things by less than a second.

Answer 7

yes they have daylight saving time just like we do.

Answer 8

no, they have always been like that im not shure what you are saying.