Canadians are changing their clocks tonight as much of the country prepares to spring forward for daylight time. The change happens for most of the country at 2 a.m. local time. Yukon and most of Sask...
There are actual health recommendations based on solar time. For example, we are cautioned to be especially careful of summer sun exposure between 10 am and 2 pm. As far as I know, that makes sense only in the context of solar time: the 2 hours on either side of when the sun is at it highest (solar noon.)
Unless there is something about the actual timing of the risk I don’t understand, under DST the recommendation should be “between 11:00 am and 3:00 pm.”
Where I am, in Saskatchewan, my local time is about 1.5 hours distant from solar time. Thus, that recommendation should be “between 11:30 am and 3:30 pm,” although I suspect 11-3 is close enough.
That would require a lot more timezones. Solar noon fluctuates by an hour depending on which side of the same time zone you’re in, and that’s not even considering all the timezones that are offset for geographical convenience.
The sun is at the highest when the sun is at the highest. It’s called the solar noon. If you are in Thunder Bay, it happens arouns 1PM EST/2PM EDT. If you are in Gaspé, it happens around 11:20 EST/12:20 EDT.
See how much binding the timezone to a specific shift doesn’t make sense based on your arbitrary metric?
All that means is that the layout of the time zones is stupid. Noon is noon, and my opinion is that clock noon should be as close to solar noon as possible.
or we should eliminate time zones entirely and use a single clock time worldwide.
If we eliminated DST for the summer, or would not have permanent DST, we’d need to change culture to not have 9-5 banking/office work days but rather 8-4, 7-3 or 6-2, similar to how the trades already work.
Why is that important?
There are actual health recommendations based on solar time. For example, we are cautioned to be especially careful of summer sun exposure between 10 am and 2 pm. As far as I know, that makes sense only in the context of solar time: the 2 hours on either side of when the sun is at it highest (solar noon.)
Unless there is something about the actual timing of the risk I don’t understand, under DST the recommendation should be “between 11:00 am and 3:00 pm.”
Where I am, in Saskatchewan, my local time is about 1.5 hours distant from solar time. Thus, that recommendation should be “between 11:30 am and 3:30 pm,” although I suspect 11-3 is close enough.
That would require a lot more timezones. Solar noon fluctuates by an hour depending on which side of the same time zone you’re in, and that’s not even considering all the timezones that are offset for geographical convenience.
Because that’s the definition of noon…
That’s very arbitrary.
The sun is at the highest when the sun is at the highest. It’s called the solar noon. If you are in Thunder Bay, it happens arouns 1PM EST/2PM EDT. If you are in Gaspé, it happens around 11:20 EST/12:20 EDT.
See how much binding the timezone to a specific shift doesn’t make sense based on your arbitrary metric?
All that means is that the layout of the time zones is stupid. Noon is noon, and my opinion is that clock noon should be as close to solar noon as possible.
or we should eliminate time zones entirely and use a single clock time worldwide.
Eliminating time zones would be pretty amazing.
If we eliminated DST for the summer, or would not have permanent DST, we’d need to change culture to not have 9-5 banking/office work days but rather 8-4, 7-3 or 6-2, similar to how the trades already work.