Inspiration: Summer Solstice

So at the weekend it was the Summer Solstice and I watched the clouds and morning rain live on English Heritage facebook page as they streamed footage of Stonehenge live around the world.  About 100,000 people watched the sunset and about 50,000 watched the sunrise.  The sunset was glorious, even though you couldn't see the sun set as the clouds were amazing.

We think of the Solstice as being a day, or even a couple of days but the truth is, it's a moment and this year it was on the 20th June at 21:43 (GMT).  The earth orbits the sun, but it also has a tilt which means that when it is one side of the sun, one hemisphere gets more light and when the earth is the other side, the other hemisphere gets more light.  This is why Australia has summer when the UK has winter.  

The Solstices are the points of the Earth's journey round the sun where the tilt is at it's maximum in relation to the sun.  So at the summer solstice in Australia, the Southern Hemisphere is tilted away and so has shorter days and experiences winter, while the Northern Hemisphere is tilted towards the sun and has longer days and experiences Summer.  There are some diagrams here on pinterest.

As we head from Spring Equinox, which is the point in the Earth's orbit where the seasons are equal in both hemispheres because the tilt is at right angles to path of light from the sun, to Summer Solstice, the sun climbs higher in the sky every day and the length of the day increases also.

At the North Pole, Summer Solstice means that it faces the sun constantly so the sun does not set while the South Pole is plunged in to darkness.  The Equator has a latitude of 0 degrees while the North Pole is at 90 degrees.  Where I live in Cornwall is around 50 degrees.  On the 20th June 2020, the sun set at 21.35 and then rose again at 5:10, giving us 7 hours 35 minutes of night.  In Aberdeen, which is further North at 57 degrees, the sun set at 22.08 and then rose at 4:12, giving 6 hours and four minutes of night.  At the North Pole, the sun does not set during the Summer Solstice, in fact it will not set until the Autumn Equinox when it finally sinks below the horizon.

The parts of the planet that get more sun warm up and those that get less, cool down.  It takes time for things to heat up though.  At the Summer Solstice, most of summer is ahead of us (in theory, it isn't always like that in the UK).  The land reaches its warmest shortly after the Solstice in mid July, but the sea takes longer reaching it's warmest in late August.  This is why the coldest part of winter is after the Winter Solstice and January is often the coldest month.  It's known as lag.

So for now, the effect of the decreasing day length will not be very noticeable.  The greatest changes in day lengths occur around the Equinoxes and the smallest changes in day length around the Solstices.  On Saturday, the sun set at 21.35 and it won't set at 21.34 until the 1st of July.  On the Equinox this year the sun will set at 19:18 while the following day it will set ay 19.15.

I began my most recent bracelet with the Stonehenge sunset in the background and it seemed very fitting to name it after the Summer Solstice.  It has a softness to it the light often has early on Summer days.  The sun's path gradually climbs higher and higher across the bracelet.  It has to be said though, the sun does not take a zig zag path...  I really love this bracelet and I know I am going to wear it loads this summer, because the best is yet to come!