Sunday, March 13, 2022

Do we gain or lose an hour, will it be darker or lighter, and other pithy questions

For what it's worth, we are now on Daylight Saving Time here in Ontario. I can always remember whether to put the clocks forward or backward - at least on those few timepieces that are not already automated - using the mnemonic "Spring forward, Fall back" (although it would be quite possible to spring back and fall forward, if less likely). 

What I can never remember, though, without laboriously working them out from first principles, is whether we "lose" or "gain" an hour, whether it makes it lighter or darker in the mornings or evenings, etc. These things never quite seem intuitive. I wondered if writing them down might make them easier to remember.

When we set our clocks an hour forward in Spring (like we are even close to spring here in Ontario!), we lose an hour, or more accurately we lose an hour's sleep. This is because, if we go to sleep at a "normal" time and wake up at, say, 7am on the new settings, this would normally be 6am, so it feels like we get an hour's less sleep. Of course, you could avoid this, by changing the clocks before you go to bed, but that way you lose an hour from your day instead (and I know which I would prefer). By the same token, in the Fall, we gain an hour's sleep.

Because we wake up an hour earlier than we used to (in clock terms at least), mornings tend to look darker than they used to, and evenings lighter. That's because 7am is what used to be 6am, i.e. still dark. You can avoid this by always getting up at 10am! After the Fall clock change,  it works the other way around: mornings feel lighter than they used to, and evenings darker.

Amd finally, because we now change to Daylight Saving Time a couple of weeks earlier than we used to here in Canada, and a couple of weeks earlier than Europe does the same thing, the relative time zones are messed up for a couple of weeks. So, while the UK is usually 5 hours ahead of EST in Ontario, for these two weeks I have to remember when ringing family that the UK is only 4 hours ahead (because we have sprung forward and they have not), and Western Europe is 5 hours ahead not 6. In the Fall, the UK and Europe change their clocks back a week before Canada, creating a 6/7 hour time difference instead of 5/6 hours, but only for one week. It's complicated!

It's no surprise, then, that Europe has already set in motion a bill to permanently do away with Daylight Saving Time, although the debate goes on, and several countries are having difficulty deciding whether to remain on "winter" time or "summer" time. Such a change seems less likely in the UK, where people are apparently more wedded to the current system of changing clocks twice a year (or maybe they just don't want to follow what Europe is doing, on principle!) In Ontario, too, things are in motion, but the agreement to stay on Daylight Saving Time permanently, already passed in the legislature, depends on neighbouring Quebec and New York also instituting the same change (which sounds like a prohibitive requirement, except that the US Senate has just passed the "Sunshine Protection Act" which would leave the whole of the USA on permanent daylight saving time if ratified in the House, so change may be closer than we thought).

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