So many hours of sun as never

Record-breaking year in Switzerland – As many sunshine hours as nieDie sun in Basel since the beginning of the year as much as ever. Also in Zurich, Berne and Geneva the previous peak values could fall. Stefan Häne0 comment familiar picture: To every Season of the year can be enjoyed in the whole of Switzerland, the sun. Photo: Melanie Duchene/Keystone

to get hold of In Switzerland a place in the sun, is currently a Lightweight – at least in the literal sense.

In Basel, for example, has between 1. January and the 24. May the sun appeared during 858 hours this is a week before the end of the month already slightly more than in the previous peak year of 2011, as the number of the sun climbed hours in the first five months on the 857 and the measurements are carried out since 1886.

This record will be expanded according to the model calculations until the end of the month of the year, says Stephan Bader from the Swiss Federal office for meteorology and climatology (Meteo Switzerland) on request.

Similarly, it looks at the other three sites, the very long measurement series of homogeneous data of the Month have: In Geneva is likely to be for the sunshine duration to the period of January to may, according to Bader, rank two is pretty safe, in Bern and in Zurich, the definitive ranking of the podium places one through three is still uncertain.

The peak values are typical in the way that the sunshine duration increases at the measuring locations for a long time tend to be. Around 1980 there was a low point, in Zurich, for instance, with only a little more than 1400 hours, before and after, the sunshine duration reached in the year sum up to almost 2100 hours significantly higher values.

A definitive explanation for this “apparent periodic fluctuation” does not exist, as Bader makes clear. There are numerous factors would play into it. The thickness of the sun include, for example, no radiation, the currents and heat content of the sea, the winter snow hemisphere area on the North, the summer Arctic and Antarctic sea ice extent, but also the position of the Jet stream. “What are the factors that combination to one or other of the climate fluctuation leads,” says Bader, “is to be assessed due to the complex reaction mechanisms in the atmosphere can often seem impossible.”

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