Talk:Season
Astronomical seasons should be reckoned by insolation. The seasons should begin at the cross-quarter days in the astronomical view of point. In astronomical vie
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Astronomical Reckoning or Triditional Reckoning?
Astronomical seasons should be reckoned by insolation. The seasons should begin at the cross-quarter days in the astronomical view of point. In astronomical view, the Summer Solstice is the "hottest" day of the year. So how can Summer Solstice be the beginning the summer?
Dividing seasons using solstices and equinoxes is just a compromise of meteorological reckoning and days with astronomical meaning. They're just approximate dates, aren't they?
The Seasonal Quarters: Dates of the Solstices and Equinoxes
[|The US Naval Obseravtory publishes "the" national standard data for the dates and times of the solstices and equinoxes. The times given there are in UT (Universal Time -similar to GMT) so they read 5 hours ahead of what clocks are reading in the US's Eastern Standard Time or 4 hours during Eastern Daylight Saving Time. The following values represent the actual/correct dates based on USA time (EST/EDT).
MARCH EQUINOX: usually March 20th; occasionally the 21st; NEVER the 24th or 25th...
JUNE SOLSTICE: usually June 21st; occasionally the 20th...
SEPTEMBER EQUINOX: usually Sept. 23rd; occasionally the 22nd; NEVER (never) the 20th, 21st 24th, 25th...
DECEMBER SOLSTICE: usually Dec. 21st; occasionally the 22nd
So, per the above, the article is incorrect(at 9/11/07 it still was saying "Autumn (90 days) on 21-22 Sept, the autumn equinox"): the Earth NEVER (ever) reaches (USA's) Autumnal Equinox on September 21st. In the US's Eastern Daylight Time zone the Autumnal Equinox usually occurs on September 23rd and occasionally on September 22nd. Therefore I have corrected that line in the main article to say "Sept 22-23" today. earrach9/11/07
Old talk
- They are traditional dates, any American dates are recent imports. See for instance Ronald Hutton, The Stations of the Sun, pp140-141: "From this ceremony the feast took its popular British name of Candlemas; it marked the formal opening of spring...", p218: "Finally in both under 'Cetsoman' is the definition 'First May, i.e. the first motion...of summer'..." etc.
- Consider also "darling buds of may" in Shakespeare's "summers day": may is hawthorn, but hawthorn blooms are gone by the time of the summer solstice. —Ashley Y 10:11, Apr 19, 2004 (UTC) (also British)
Section merge to reduce temperate zone bias
The former "Traditional" section epitomized this page's heavy bias toward temperate zones by presuming to declare their traditions to be universal. I merged that section with "Official" thereby gathering the three main methods for designation into one section.
The astronomical discussion needs to note that "greatest insolation" occurs twice each year in the tropics as the sun passes directly overhead. This negates the universality of the cross-quarter days, which are meaningless in the tropics.
The page is still rather wordy (excessive discussion of Ellesmere, for example) and contains other temperate biases. For example, wet/dry is basically only given lip service. In fact, if one considers flowering trees, there are numerous seasons in the tropics: mango will bear fruit just before the monsoon starts, rambutan bears early in the monsoon, and mangosteen later in the monsoon. The "Ecological" section really should note this relative aspect of seasonality. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Martindo (talk • contribs)
I agree there is too much bias towards temperate seasons in this article. Whilst wet/dry, opposed to hot/cold, is a fair top level distinction of tropical seasons, it should be noted that there two of each within a year for some key tropical locations, such as East Africa (see fig2 https://doi.org/10.1175/JHM-D-21-0017.1).
An important caveat that should be discussed is that there are important seasonal variations in temperature that can be different or coincide with rainfall variations, and this then influences the nature of heatwaves in ways that are important for local populations (see fig1 https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.adbb2d47 - this is a preprint so should not be referenced yet, but noting here to support future editing of the page, there will be other references that could be used to make the point).
This aspect brings me onto "Monsoon", which is first-and-foremost a phenomenon resulting from a change in wind direction. It is associated with rainfall, but is not defined by it. Not all tropical wet seasons are considered to be monsoonal. It is a word that different people have different definitions for, so I would suggest describing it on its own, and not using it to be synonymous with wet season.
I have never seen ICZ used for ITCZ. Whilst I suppose it must have been as it's mentioned on the ITCZ wiki, I suggest this page uses the primary acronym from that page, as it is by far the most commonly used. --DecFinney (talk) 08:48, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
Semi-protected edit request on 9 September 2024
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Please change the text:
- The traditional calendar in China has 4 seasons based on 24 periods known as solar terms.[1] The four seasons chūn (春), xià (夏), qiū (秋), and dōng (冬)—universally translated as "spring", "summer", "autumn", and "winter"—each center on the respective solstice or equinox. Astronomically, the seasons are said to begin on Lichun (立春, "the start of spring") on about 4 February, Lixia (立夏) on about 6 May, Liqiu (立秋) on about 8 August, and Lidong (立冬) on about 7 November. These dates were not part of the traditional lunar calendar, and moveable holidays such as Chinese New Year and the Mid-Autumn Festival are more closely associated with the seasons. It forms the basis of other such systems in East Asian lunisolar calendars.
to:
- The traditional calendar in China has 4 seasons based on 24 periods, twelve of which are called zhōngqi and twelve of which are known as jiéqi.[2] These periods are collectively known in English as "solar terms" or "solar breaths".[3] The four seasons chūn (春), xià (夏), qiū (秋), and dōng (冬)—translated as "spring", "summer", "autumn", and "winter"[4]—each center on the respective solstice or equinox.[5] Astronomically, the seasons are said to begin on Lichun (立春, "the start of spring") on about 4 February, Lixia (立夏) on about 6 May, Liqiu (立秋) on about 8 August, and Lidong (立冬) on about 8 November. This system forms the basis of other such systems in East Asian lunisolar calendars.[2]
The Friesian.com source was determined to be unreliable in this discussion, so my suggested text supplies better sources. While singing the Marseillaise (talk) 07:37, 9 September 2024 (UTC)
Not done: According to the page's protection level you should be able to edit the page yourself. If you seem to be unable to, please reopen the request with further details. ⸺(Random)staplers 18:04, 9 September 2024 (UTC)
References
- ^ Ross, Kelley L. "The Solar Terms and the Chinese 60 Year Calendar Cycle". friesian.com.
{{cite web}}:|access-date=requires|url=(help); Missing or empty|url=(help) - ^ a b Dershowitz, Nachum; Reingold, Edward M. (2008). Calendrical Calculations, Third Edition. Cambridge University Press. p. 248–249.
- ^ Martzloff, Jean-Claude (2016). Astronomy and Calendars: The Other Chinese Mathematics, 104 BC–AD 1644. Springer-Verlag. p. 63.
- ^ Li, Wendan (2009). Chinese Writing and Calligraphy. University of Hawaii Press. p. 161.
- ^ Martzloff, Jean-Claude (2016). Astronomy and Calendars: The Other Chinese Mathematics, 104 BC–AD 1644. Springer-Verlag. p. 64.
Video
What do you think about adding this video? It could be added below or replacing the "Seasonal changes of a tree over a year" video which has a low resolution. How a tree changes throughout the seasons is already shown further up with four tree images captioned "Four temperate and subpolar seasons…" Prototyperspective (talk) 00:54, 14 December 2025 (UTC)
Illumination of Earth by Sun at the northern solstice
The "Illumination of Earth by Sun at the northern solstice" diagram is incorrect. For some reason it appears to be a mirror image.
Moving east from Australia, the first landmass would be NZ then South America, not Madagascar. India is east of the Arabian Peninsula, not west. ~2026-13416-59 (talk) 13:52, 1 March 2026 (UTC)
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