Every year spring is getting shorter by about 30 seconds, according to researchers.
This is mainly to do with how the Earth’s axis wobbles – very slowly – as it moves, or as LiveScience explains, “like a wobbling top, in a type of motion called precession”.
For a thorough explanation of the specifics, LiveScience has the details and a useful video. But will you really notice the shorter spring? Most of us won’t during our lifetime, as the lengthening and shortening of seasons builds up over thousands of years. As Gizmodo put it: “Spring will be shortest in about 6430.”
LiveScience reports that Larry Gerstman, an amateur astronomer in New York, calculates (using values from the Astronomical Tables for the Sun, Moon and Planets) summer will be the longest season this year (93.65 days), followed by spring (92.76), autumn (89.84) and winter (88.99).
By looking at the equivalent figures for the seasons in the year 3000, you can see that in the northern hemisphere, spring and winter are becoming shorter, while summer and autumn are becoming longer.
