Why do the clocks not go forward earlier in the year?
Posted by rogerrabbit4@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 111 comments
The clocks go back on the last weekend of October which is over 1 month after the Autumn Equinox, so we do we have to wait until the end of March, which is after the Spring Equinox, for them to go forward? Surely the end of February would have the same amount of daylight as the end of October.
Suspicious_Juice9511@reddit
nothing about is logical.
qrrux@reddit
Stay TAI.
MmmThisISaTastyBurgr@reddit
What do you mean, TAI?
qrrux@reddit
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Atomic_Time
GMT is, imo, no bueno.
Smooth-Purchase1175@reddit
Fascinating.
qrrux@reddit
Leap Seconds, UTC, Civil Timekeeping, and daylight savings are all lame.
Smooth-Purchase1175@reddit
Is that so? Then maybe my loyalty has been misplaced all these years.
Smooth-Purchase1175@reddit
I've been doing that since 2018 and let me tell you, it's a relief.
BarNo3385@reddit
It's utterly stupid that Greenwich is not on Geeenwich Mean Time for half the year.
gloomfilter@reddit
This is the truth. It's ridiculous and expecting it to make sense is assuming it's not.
I'm fully intending to go to the monument to the guy who invented it and urinate on it. His monument is actually a sundial. It's not adjusted each year for daylight saving time because that would be hard and inconvenient. Who'd have known....
codechris@reddit
Hopefully clocks changing will go soon so that is fine
colin_staples@reddit
As long as we stay on GMT and not BST, that's fine
Smooth-Purchase1175@reddit
That's exactly what the IANT (International Alliance for Natural Time) is campaigning for, an end to DST worldwide (I'm the UK representative, so if you're British resident or citizen, then I'm your advocate).
codechris@reddit
I have a preferance for BST but in reality I don't about that as much as I care about getting rid of the clocks changing
colin_staples@reddit
Mid-day / noon should be when the Sun is at its highest, and that can only happen with GMT
Mid-day / noon should be the middle of our waking day, and midnight should be the middle of our sleeping time, so we should all be waking up at 4am and going to bed at 8pm
codechris@reddit
Who says we should do that?
colin_staples@reddit
I do
And the fact that we don't, is why we have to change the clocks twice a year, because we get up too late and go to bed too late, and so our awake period is shifted relative to the daylight period.
Changing the clocks is not the solution. Changing our wake/sleep pattern is.
Imagine how much energy we'd save with the reduced * need for artificial light.
If you wake at 04:00 and go to bed at 20:00 summer you would barely need artificial light in the days around 21st June
*not eliminated
TheTjalian@reddit
So please explain what people on night shifts are supposed to do?
colin_staples@reddit
Everyone’s shift patterns would be adjusted to make it work
codechris@reddit
Enjoy that sleep pattern
colin_staples@reddit
8 hours of sleep is 8 hours of sleep
If the whole world did it this way, it would be normal
Why do we wake up after it has got light, and stay up long after it has got dark?
codechris@reddit
Unsurprisingly you didn't understand my previous message. Enjoy
colin_staples@reddit
Perhaps I'm too dim to understand the subtleties of your comment
Care to explain?
MattGeddon@reddit
Oh good god no. Why would you want to deprive us of more light in the evening in summer?
KeyLog256@reddit
The age old Reddit debate.
Personally I love it - that mental boost when it is suddenly going dark an hour later is amazing. Combined with the fact days are getting longer faster at this time of year, end of March sees the sun setting two hours later than it was at the start.
Yes, we lose an hour at the end of October, but it's going dark at around 3pm anyway in November and December, so it doesn't really matter. It's depressing as fuck and not moving the clocks back by an hour will make zero difference.
codechris@reddit
I say it does. You suddenly go from it being dark late afternoon to being dark mid-afternoon; that is a huge factor. Reports demonstrate how bad this is for people; just look up heart attack spikes when the clocks change. Study after study shows how awful this is for people.
This isn't scientific, but my personal opinion however I would think that the metal boost in March is tiny in comparison to how damaging it is in October.
Do your own research of course, but I quickly grabbed three links
https://oxfordhealthbrc.nihr.ac.uk/the-uk-spring-clock-change-navigating-the-impact-on-sleep/
https://impact.ed.ac.uk/opinion/why-daylight-savings-should-be-put-to-bed/
https://www.bradford.ac.uk/news/archive/2024/clocks-change-causes-rise-in-heart-attacks-and-car-accidents.php
KeyLog256@reddit
Agreed, but like I say, it's going to be cold and dark in winter anyway so that negative is massively offset by the jump forward.
I grant you, or rather the studies, on heart attacks, but I'd warrant your ticker isn't in great condition anyway if you have a heart attack because it goes dark an hour earlier at a time when we're rapidly moving towards it being dark mid-afternoon regardless.
I'd also question correlation and how much people could do to avoid it given the other factor - car accidents. Sounds like people aren't taking the right precautions.
codechris@reddit
I don't agree that "it's going to be cold and dark in winter anyway so that negative is massively offset by the jump forward" but we can agree to disagree there. As someone that lives in Sweden, I disagree.
But the studies and research back-up how bad it is. Like I say, do your own research don't take my word for it
KeyLog256@reddit
I'm surprised you don't think the UK is cold and dark in winter, but I assume Sweden is darker and colder so that's fair!
I don't doubt the research, but the feeling of the clocks jumping forward is so great I don't care. Sounds a bit crazy maybe, but winter drives me crazy.
You should hear how mental the lack of a summer some years in the UK makes me...
codechris@reddit
I am from the UK hence being in a UK sub. No I can tell you don't care, I am not surprised but there we go. Agree to disagree
v60qf@reddit
Because the shortest day and the earliest sunset are not actually on the same day.
Smooth-Purchase1175@reddit
One's on the solstice, the other's a week earlier on Saint Lucy's Day.
tradandtea123@reddit
That's true but the difference is a few days. The clocks change about 7 weeks before the shortest day and about 13 weeks after. Earliest sunset being a week later, it still makes little sense.
v60qf@reddit
Your mum makes little sense.
Beartato4772@reddit
Yeah, this is one of my favourite facts. The latest sunrise is not on the same day as either of those.
SingerFirm1090@reddit
A more relevant question is why the clocks change at all,
In June it's light at 4:00am (in London), yet getting dark at 10:00pm, why not shift the clocks to reflect this. light evenings for going out and driving home in the light.
We always get the 'what about 'Scotland' or farmers', well the hours in the day are determined by the ornbit of the Earth around the Sun, fiddling with the clocks makes no difference.
BppnfvbanyOnxre@reddit
I lived overseas for a while, not everywhere bothers with DST.
Smooth-Purchase1175@reddit
It's mostly a Western thing.
F1sh_Face@reddit
I never understand the 'farmers' argument. Do the cows change their bedside alarms and want milking at a different time?
_LV426@reddit
It’s actually a myth about the farmers. The original reason was to align our time with European time during WW1
Smooth-Purchase1175@reddit
You know what's crazy? France and Spain do double summer time!
Master_Elderberry275@reddit
That also isn't the case. It's literally to make more use of daylight to spend time outside doing recreational activities as most people are asleep between 3:30am and 4:30pm and awake between 8:30pm and 9:30pm.
dew1911@reddit
Not too mention most farm equipment these days has approximately 24,500 lights attached to it, so working in the dark isn't the hassle it was 150 years ago.
Working early shifts it's depressing how we are just about starting our day in light, then get dumped back into darkness for a month
Martinonfire@reddit
Yes, cows don’t wear watches so they have to tell the time by the sun, they don’t know it’s morning till the sun rises.
UnpredictiveList@reddit
I don’t think cows can tell the time.
Winter_Sweet5023@reddit
the farmers argument always seems silly to me, surely farmers work with the sun regardless of what the clock says.
xPositor@reddit
You're right - and we should stick to GMT all rear around because 12 noon is when the sun is at its zenith (albeit within a few minutes of noon in actuality).
The question should really be, why don't we start things earlier or later if we're concerned about the amount of daylight available for an activity. So instead of changing the clocks backwards and forwards, we start schools at 10am during the winter (for example), and farmers can go out and plough at whatever time they like.
Smooth-Purchase1175@reddit
I wrote an article about this very issue in the Guardian 3 years ago - right here. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/26/britain-clocks-go-forward-eu-us-hour-changes?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=headtopics&utm_medium=news&utm_campaign=2022-03-26
Master_Elderberry275@reddit
We could, but then you arguably get more confusion as you'll have kids turning up at 9am after the October half term, and at 10am in March when school started an hour ago. At least at the moment, school, work, events, shop times all stay at the same time on the clock (i.e. our cultural understanding of the time of day).
caniuserealname@reddit
Changing everyone's shifts to match the light cycle would be a beaurocratic nightmare.
You could probably achieve the same effect by like, changing the clocks or something.
samejhr@reddit
Why is it important for 12 o’clock to be at solar noon?
Sylvester88@reddit
And change parents' shifts at work so they can take their kids to school? And then have to change the opening hours of shops because the staff aren't in yet?
ChemistryQuirky2215@reddit
Probably easier to just change the clocks....
gloomfilter@reddit
Clearly you're not a computer programmer...
ChemistryQuirky2215@reddit
Haha, correct, but I do work in product so very used to asking the devs to just meet the requirementsl
gloomfilter@reddit
The date thing is a massive pain in the arse from a programming side.
I have war stories about this that would bore the hell out of you. It's really complex stuff and not even complex in a satisfying way... you get it working and then think... why have I wasted a month of my life on this?
ChemistryQuirky2215@reddit
And then BST hits and every date goes forward by 1 day....
LaSalsiccione@reddit
I’d be happy if all those things happened tbh. Not realistic of course but it’s a nice idea
toady89@reddit
It does now, we just also change the clocks to make it easier to digest.
Camoxide2@reddit
Nah we don't need it getting light at 3am, the extra hour of light in the evening is far more useful.
llijilliil@reddit
The people in Scotland get screwed and its the people in London that actually get the benefit.
The reason being is that in Scotland there is so little light that you are stuck going to work/school in the dark either way. The shift just means that you also have to come home in the dark too and that means you don't get any daylight at all if you work somewhere without decent windows.
As for farmers, they don't give a damn what the clock says, their animals get looked after based on the sun and the only possible thing would be a market but how much of that happens in bloody January anyway.
Master_Elderberry275@reddit
Summer time is the "shift", not winter time. Summer time benefits everyone by giving us an extra hour of daylight in the evening for 7 months of the year.
Maintaining winter time is really there to benefit Scotland more than anyone else in Great Britain. If we were on BST in winter, the sunrise in Glasgow would be nearly 10pm, and it'd be pitch black at 9am for a good month or so – even worse the further north in Scotland you go – meanwhile the sun would be set before 5pm regardless. In London, winter BST would be manageable, as it is in the north of France.
llijilliil@reddit
And what's the reason for us not simply leaving it as winter time once and for all then??
Master_Elderberry275@reddit
Because we'd lose 210 hours of usable sunlight in the evenings, and 26 days in the year with sunset after 6pm.
llijilliil@reddit
What nonsense. At most we'd be losing 1 hour a day for half the year which is 182 hours.
And in the summer there is stacks of daylight anyway, who really needs the daylight to last until midnight instead of 11pm?
People die due to the disruption to their sleep in spring, there is a bump in death rates every year, let's stop doing that.
Master_Elderberry275@reddit
It isn't nonsense. BST lasts for about 7 months, or 210 days. That's 210 hours of afternoon/evening daylight.
Where do you live in the UK that the sun sets at midnight any day of the year? Nearly 90% of the UK's population lives in England and Wales, where the latest sunset of the year is before 10pm BST, or 9pm GMT. That is an extra hour of usable sunlight for most people, even at the summer solstice.
Anyway, I'm not just talking about June or July, when we'd have pretty long evenings anyway, I'm talking about the months BST gives us an hour extra daylight before 9pm between end of March and mid-May (when the sun sets between 7:30pm and 9pm) and from the start of August and the end of October (when the sun sets between 9pm and 6pm). [NB: I'm going off Birmingham because about half the UK lives south and east of that, so it applies to most people.] That's 4½ months of extra usable daylight that benefits people by allowing them to spend more time outside and more time after work in the sunlight on a sunny day (especially because they're leaving work into the four-hours-after-noon sun, rather than the relatively weaker five-hours-after-noon sun).
I don't dispute that suddenly shifting the clocks an hour does have negative effects, but so would being on one of BST or GMT all year round. I'd prefer BST all year round, but many people aren't going to agree with that – and didn't when we tried that last time in the 70s.
colin_staples@reddit
The clocks change because our "day" is wrong
If we really want mid-day / noon to be the middle of our waking day, and midnight to be the middle of our sleeping time, then we should all be waking up at 4am and going to bed at 8pm
But we don't do that
Master_Elderberry275@reddit
It being what we naturally do makes it the opposite of "wrong".
colin_staples@reddit
It’s not what we “naturally” do, because it’s only thanks to artificial light that we can stay up well after the sun has set.
Before artificial light we couldn’t do that because we don’t have night vision.
So it’s absolutely not what we “naturally” do, it’s what we artificially do.
Master_Elderberry275@reddit
We have artificial light, so any hypothetical in which we don't is irrelevant.
Given we have artificial light, we naturally choose to stay up later and get up later. No one forces us to do that; we choose to do it. We could choose to use artificial light to extend our days later rather than earlier. We don't use artificial light to be awake between 4am and 7am in winter, as we would if we did naturally align our day around solar noon, we use it to be up between 8pm and 11pm instead.
Therefore, it's within most of our nature to stay up later if we can usefully use those hours. It's what we naturally do.
Valuable-Wallaby-167@reddit
That is equally true for the people of London.
Also, if we didn't change the clocks we'd have less light in the evening in summer not more.
Ergophobe470@reddit
Not if we stay at BST all year round, which would be my preferred option.
alexihampson@reddit
BST all year round would be awful in winter, it wouldn’t get light until 10 am!
Voidition@reddit
And? Would rather have more daylight in the evening rather than in the morning
People generally spend more hours awake after noon, than they do before noon.. so having BST all year round, means more sunlight and vitamin d for everyone
Also like having more daylight when you're wide awake vs when you've not long woken up sounds a lot nicer
Master_Elderberry275@reddit
The sun's not strong enough in winter to get vitamin D anyway.
In December & January, the sun wouldn't rise until 9am in the southeasternmost part (i.e. the earliest sunrises in the winter), and would still set before or just after 5pm, so anyone who works a 9-5 would not be getting any sunlight on workdays, compared to getting at least 45 mins before work now.
In fact, in Glasgow, anyone who works 9-5 would get no daylight before or after work on weekdays between 21 November and 8 January – so for nearly a month and a half.
Valuable-Wallaby-167@reddit
You know it's already BST in summer right? It's in the name
Ergophobe470@reddit
Exactly, that's what I mean. GMT all year round would mean less light in summer, but with BST all year round we wouldn't lose any light in summer and would gain some in winter.
Valuable-Wallaby-167@reddit
Firstly, the original comment was talking about how if we didn't change our clocks it would be light later in the summer.
Secondly, we would have exactly the same amount of light in the winter, BST doesn't magically give us more light you know. All it would mean is it would be dark for longer in the mornings and lighter for longer in the evenings & winter mornings are brutal enough as it is without it not getting light until 10.
Alarmed-Cheetah-1221@reddit
What an unhelpfully pedantic response
Valuable-Wallaby-167@reddit
Genuinely, how?
Are people not allowed to have differing opinions on daylight savings on Reddit now without being put down for it?
How ridiculous.
Alarmed-Cheetah-1221@reddit
Because clearly they didn't mean that changing the clocks had any effect on the actual amount of light we have. It's about the amount of light during the time that most people are awake.
I don't understand your comment about opinions. Which opinion have you offered that I have now allowed you to have?
Ridiculous indeed
Valuable-Wallaby-167@reddit
And my point was that regardless of what we do with the clocks we have the same amount of light in winter when people are AWAKE, because people are awake for longer than the amount of daylight hours we have in winter regardless of what we do with the clocks. So, no, I wasn't "being pedantic" I was disagreeing with them that it would increase the amount of waking daylight hours we have.
It depends on whether you prefer for it to be light 10-5 or 9-4 and personally I'd prefer what we have now. Which is the opinion I'd offered in my previous comment. Which you already know because it's right there and which I strongly suspect is what you actually have a problem with.
Motorgirl38@reddit
Split the difference - move 1/2 hour and then stop changing the clocks. Not sure if that would be GMT -0.5 or GMT +0.5
johnny_holland@reddit
Because most people work 9-5/5:30. That means we spend 3 hours of the morning in work but five/five and a half hours in the afternoon, which is stupid. Pushing noon to 1 makes sense.
Howtothinkofaname@reddit
We do shift the clock to reflect it. It’s better to have an hour of daylight from 9pm till 10pm than from 3am to 4am, so that’s what we do.
KeyLog256@reddit
Mental boost at the end of March. That's literally it.
Winter_Sweet5023@reddit
Working the early shift it was the opposite of a mental boost.
I'd spend most of the winter going to work in the dark, in March the mornings start getting get light enough that I could see the sun on the way to work. Then the clocks would change and it would be dark again
KeyLog256@reddit
What time do you start out of interest? And roughly what part of the country?
Master_Elderberry275@reddit
The days in late Feb (when we're on GMT) are about the same as late Oct (when we're on BST): they're both 10½ hours long. However, solar noon is at a different time, so in February, the days are 07:00 - 17:30 GMT and in October it's ~06:30-17:00 GMT.
By now though, we could certainly have BST with mornings being as light as they are in late October and midwinter. In fact, the Americans do just that – they've just changed the clocks – but I think there's also a weather motivation.
March is certainly not late September / early October's equivalent in terms of temperature, and frosty mornings are still quite common. By moving the clocks forward, you move people's activities an hour earlier, meaning an hour colder. That means rush hour is more likely to be frostier, icier and colder. Nonetheless, I do agree with you, and I think we should align our 'spring forward' with the Americans.
New_Line4049@reddit
It's tied to farming. In February there's traditionally not a lot of fieldwork going on, by end of march there is.
codechris@reddit
It's not.
Fred_Derf_Jnr@reddit
Why don’t we all just get up earlier? Start the day at 6am and we would have nice long evenings.
Yes there would be a struggle initially, but we would adapt like we always do.
_FreddieLovesDelilah@reddit
even if you worked 6-3 though the evenings would still be dark.
TajaAjda@reddit
Not everyone has the same body clock rhythm 🙄
tradandtea123@reddit
November, December, January it's dark so much it makes little difference if the clocks are changed or not. But March it's often light at 6am until 6pm, I'd definitely prefer it getting light in the evening until later rather than before I get up.
yeksnyls@reddit
I've already put my clocks forward
DrH1983@reddit
I'd prefer GMT all year. I'd rather have brighter mornings as getting up when it's dark is fucking depressing, and BST would increase the frequency of getting up when it's dark.
AddictedToRugs@reddit
Because spring forward, autumn back.
ThinkAboutThatFor1Se@reddit
Because Scotland would dark until 10-11am
KeyLog256@reddit
In the north of Scotland it's dark as fuck all winter anyway, so it doesn't really matter.
If dark, cold, and damp depress you, leave Scotland.
ThinkAboutThatFor1Se@reddit
Same could be said for anywhere though?
KeyLog256@reddit
Indeed it could. If anywhere is depressing you because of natural things that aren't going to change, then you should aim to leave by any means possible.
But you aren't going to get as much cold and dark living in the south of Spain for example.
YazmindaHenn@reddit
So following your logic, why would anything change, why not just tell OP to leave the UK and find somewhere that's brighter earlier?
bsnimunf@reddit
In Aberdeen at the end of Feb the sunrises about 7am if the clocks went forward that would make it 8am.
ThinkAboutThatFor1Se@reddit
Right but what about December?
bsnimunf@reddit
OP is suggesting putting the clocks forward at the end of Feb not the start of December.
codechris@reddit
I am in Sweden and no it wouldn't
UnacceptableUse@reddit
Did you know that the reason why February is shorter than all the other months dates back to a roman superstition? My point is, the calendar system is not based in good logic it's based on thousands of years of superstition, traditions and outdated practices.
wildcharmander1992@reddit
For all we know when the clocks go back that's the correct true time and we're actually bringing them forward for the rest of the year
EdmundTheInsulter@reddit
When they go back it is more likely the true time where the sun is at the highest point at noon. Bst moves midday to 1pm
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