So I was looking at google maps while working because of course I was. I’m not even kidding when I say that I was wondering if there’s some nice place far enough south to experience 18+ hours of sunlight and nice weather in the southern summer as we do here in the northern summer in Estonia. But when I took a look, the closest thing would be the southernmost tip of Chile, which apparently is pretty cold in the (southern hemisphere) summer. And just a few more degrees south, we have Antarctica. Here, you go a few more degrees north and you just get Finland.

I was wondering what the reasoning is - is it something inherent to the Earth’s orbit around the sun, or is it due to the shapes of the continents, the ocean currents, etc?

Edit: Many great answers here. Thank you!

  • grue@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    (Please correct me if I’m wrong!)

    You got longitude and latitude backwards, but otherwise 👍

    • FourPacketsOfPeanuts@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      My vaguely nonsense way of remembering this is “latitude” is one letter swap away from “altitude” which is how far up and down something is. And longitude lines are long because they go round and round without ever meeting at a point

      • AmidFuror@fedia.io
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        5 months ago

        Not sure about the longitude pneumonic. Latitude lines stay parallel, but longitude lines all connect at the poles. 0⁰ longitude ends where 180⁰ longitude starts at each pole. So longitude lines don’t really keep circling.