Hello Chris. I stand by my statement, but I'll clarify it as follows: Every year the longest day of the year WILL occur one day before or after the Solstice for some places on earth.
In order for the date of the Solstice to be the longest day for every place on earth, every latitude would have to keep it's own "solar" clock. By imposing Time Zones we alter this "perfect" clock in at least 3 ways that I can think of.
1) DST, where observed, creates areas that are (usually) 1 hour apart from other areas that share the same latitude.
2) A map of actual Time Zones provides myriad examples of areas in the same latitude whose local clocks differ by anywhere from 15 minutes to over 2 hours.
In areas that share a latitude but have different local clocks, the solstice can occur when some areas are ahead of midnight and some are behind it. So these areas will celebrate the solstice on different dates, but will experience the same actual longest day.
Further, even if Time Zones were 24 equal slices of latitude and there was no DST, there would still be a sliver of latitude every year, abutting either the leading or trailing edge of the Time Zone nearest midnight, for which my initial statement applies.
Hello Chris. I stand by my statement, but I'll clarify it as follows: Every year the longest day of the year WILL occur one day before or after the Solstice for some places on earth.
In order for the date of the Solstice to be the longest day for every place on earth, every latitude would have to keep it's own "solar" clock. By imposing Time Zones we alter this "perfect" clock in at least 3 ways that I can think of.
1) DST, where observed, creates areas that are (usually) 1 hour apart from other areas that share the same latitude.
2) A map of actual Time Zones provides myriad examples of areas in the same latitude whose local clocks differ by anywhere from 15 minutes to over 2 hours.
In areas that share a latitude but have different local clocks, the solstice can occur when some areas are ahead of midnight and some are behind it. So these areas will celebrate the solstice on different dates, but will experience the same actual longest day.
Further, even if Time Zones were 24 equal slices of latitude and there was no DST, there would still be a sliver of latitude every year, abutting either the leading or trailing edge of the Time Zone nearest midnight, for which my initial statement applies.