Sunday, 21 February 2010

A month before spring equinox - let's move the clocks forward now!

Today we enjoyed ten hours and 17 minutes of daylight. The sun rose at 20 to seven and set a minute before five. The day, two months after winter solstice, is two hours and 43 minutes longer than the shortest day. Comparable to late October, two months before winter solstice, when the clocks go back for winter.

Why not put the clocks forward next weekend (the last one of February), rather than wait until the end of March? We'd be getting an extra hour of daylight in the evening, making us all feel that spring is just around the corner. Apart from the psychological benefit, it would also save money and reduce carbon dioxide emissions as we'd be switching the lights on an hour later.

What about the mornings? Well, the sun would rise at 07:40 rather than at 06:40, which is the case in late October just before the clocks go back. Not a problem. More on the subject of energy-saving time here.

My own body clock is adjusting to the changing length of day; I'm waking up earlier and going to sleep earlier.

The above pictures were taken in our garden after a day of sunshine, a night of frost and a preceding night of rain. The snows are slowly melting, but there's a brittle crust of ice, almost thick enough to stand on, on top of the snow cover. It's still deep enough to go over the top of my snow boots. In the drifts, the snow is almost knee-deep.

6 comments:

Paulina Wawrzyńczyk said...

The idea of changing clocks always irritates me and I don't believe in saving energy. But we have to live with that.

Michael Dembinski said...

I don't believe in saving energy

Paulina - you evidently don't have 2,000 zł gas bills :-)

Paulina Wawrzyńczyk said...

No, in fact I pay ryczałt (lump sum?) for gas and it's rather cheap:)

Marcyś said...

In my opinion changing clocks could help you to reduce your energy bills, instead of gas. Impact on gas bills is much more rapid due to drop in temperature than shortening or elongation of the day. But I may be wrong ;)

Kris said...

In addition, daylight saving changes is just so bogus... Household usage of electricity is like 1% of all usage. In theory, if the "hour swap" shortens the usage of light by one full hour, it will be only 1/24 th of 1%, so the effect is even more miserable (because it is only lightning, that can be switched on later, fridges, TVs, PCs are unaffected, and in my opinion they are the true power eaters). Getting rid of this "tradition" would save us time, and hopefully an hour of sleep:-)(because I don't believe in sleeping in advance).

Michael Dembinski said...

In all honesty, it's more about samopoczucie (great word that! One that the English language lacks). That extra hour of daylight in early spring lifts the spirits.

Plus - who wants it getting light just after 3am in midsummer? I'd rather have the sun setting an hour later (at 9pm), so I can enjoy the daylight after getting home from work!