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A season is a division of the year [1] based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun.
Given the different Sun incidence in different positions in the orbit, it is necessary to define a standard point of the orbit of the planet, to define the planet position in the orbit at each moment of the year w.r.t such point; this point is called with several names: vernal equinox, spring equinox, March equinox, all equivalent, and named considering northern hemisphere seasons.
By astronomical convention, the four seasons are determined by the solstices (the two points in the Earth's orbit of the maximum tilt of the Earth's axis, toward the Sun or away from the Sun) and the equinoxes (the two points in the Earth's orbit where the Earth's tilted axis and an imaginary line drawn from the Earth to the Sun are exactly ...
The seasons are quadrants of the Earth's orbit, marked by the two solstices and the two equinoxes. Kepler's second law states that a body in orbit traces equal areas over equal times; its orbital velocity is highest around perihelion and lowest around aphelion. [14] The Earth spends less time near perihelion and more time near aphelion.
The seasons occur because the Earth's axis of rotation is not perpendicular to its orbital plane (the plane of the ecliptic) but currently makes an angle of about 23.44° (called the obliquity of the ecliptic), and because the axis keeps its orientation with respect to an inertial frame of reference. As a consequence, for half the year the ...
Winter is the coldest and darkest season of the year in temperate and polar climates.It occurs after autumn and before spring.The tilt of Earth's axis causes seasons; winter occurs when a hemisphere is oriented away from the Sun.
Many tropical areas have both a dry and a wet season. The wet season, rainy season or green season is the time of year, ranging from one or more months when most of the average annual rainfall in a region falls. [9] Areas with wet seasons are disseminated across portions of the tropics and subtropics, some even in temperate regions. [10]
The amount of heat energy received at any location on the globe is a direct effect of Sun angle on climate, as the angle at which sunlight strikes Earth varies by location, time of day, and season due to Earth's orbit around the Sun and Earth's rotation around its tilted axis.