As you know, the sun has been setting later and later since the third week of December. Today there is almost 11.5 hours of sunlight, and it's growing every day.
As a novice hiker, this is great, as the more sunlight, the more time to hike, and the more time the sun has to warm the earth (I might not be saying that come summer!).
In my travels I have noticed how late the sun sets in some European countries, compared to the USA. When the days are at their longest, the sun will set around 8:45 pm on the east coast of the USA. But in France it won't set until 9:45.
I've asked people to help me understand this. Many explanations have been offered, from the notion that France is so far north that it gets sunlight from the sun peeking over the Arctic Circle, to the idea that the earth has a different rotation towards the sun in Europe. One person even took out a globe and flashlight to try and explain it to me.
I am grateful for these explanations, but none of them answered my question. I do understand the rotation of the earth, and the fact that the northern hemisphere will start to get more sunlight than the southern hemisphere starting in spring. But no one and no thing have ever properly explained why the sun sets later in France.
I lived in Rome as a seminarian, and the time of sunsets corresponded to those on the east coast of the USA. So why does France have the privilege of additional sunlight? Maybe God knew that French grapes needed more sunlight to produce a superior vintage?
Well, the answer finally came to me yesterday. I was on a bus from Georgetown to Falls Church and it was getting dark outside. So I looked up time zones on my iPhone browser. When I looked up European time zones I found my answer. Quite simply, France is in the wrong time zone. So is Spain, The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Monaco and Andorra (just so you know that I'm not picking on France). These countries have chosen to join Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, etc., in what is called the "Central European Time Zone.". Now Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Austria are geographically in the correct time zone, because they are to the east of the other countries. But France, Spain, The Netherlands, et al., should be on Western European Time, which would require them to turn their clocks back one hour. Then life would be grand!
It's like living in Western Indiana but residing in a county on Eastern Time. You really are pretty far west and probably should be on Central Time, but the authorities keep you on Eastern time. So you have later sunsets (not as late as France, mind you), but still later than if you lived in Raleigh, N.C. or Washington, D.C.
I hope all of this makes sense. I'm just glad the mystery has been solved!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
