https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_year
A tropical year (also known as a solar year) is the time that the Sun takes to return to the same position in the cycle of seasons, as seen from Earth; for example, the time from vernal equinox to vernal equinox, or from summer solstice to summer solstice. This differs from the time it takes Earth to complete one full orbit around the Sun as measured with respect to the fixed stars (the sidereal year) by about 20 minutes because of the precession of the equinoxes.
Since antiquity, astronomers have progressively refined the definition of the tropical year. The entry for "year, tropical" in the Astronomical Almanac Online Glossary (2015) states:
The mean tropical year in 2000 was 365.24219 ephemeris days; each ephemeris day lasting 86,400 SI seconds. This is 365.24217 mean solar days (Richards 2013, p. 587).
A tropical year (also known as a solar year) is the time that the Sun takes to return to the same position in the cycle of seasons, as seen from Earth; for example, the time from vernal equinox to vernal equinox, or from summer solstice to summer solstice. This differs from the time it takes Earth to complete one full orbit around the Sun as measured with respect to the fixed stars (the sidereal year) by about 20 minutes because of the precession of the equinoxes.
Since antiquity, astronomers have progressively refined the definition of the tropical year. The entry for "year, tropical" in the Astronomical Almanac Online Glossary (2015) states:
the period of time for the ecliptic longitude of the Sun to increase 360 degrees. Since the Sun's ecliptic longitude is measured with respect to the equinox, the tropical year comprises a complete cycle of seasons, and its length is approximated in the long term by the civil (Gregorian) calendar. The mean tropical year is approximately 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 45 seconds.An equivalent, more descriptive, definition is "The natural basis for computing passing tropical years is the mean longitude of the Sun reckoned from the precessionally moving equinox (the dynamical equinox or equinox of date). Whenever the longitude reaches a multiple of 360 degrees the mean Sun crosses the vernal equinox and a new tropical year begins" (Borkowski 1991, p. 122).
The mean tropical year in 2000 was 365.24219 ephemeris days; each ephemeris day lasting 86,400 SI seconds. This is 365.24217 mean solar days (Richards 2013, p. 587).
History
Origin
The word "tropical" comes from the Greek tropikos meaning "turn" (tropic 1992). Thus, the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn mark the extreme north and south latitudes
where the Sun can appear directly overhead, and where it appears to
"turn" in its annual seasonal motion. Because of this connection between
the tropics and the seasonal cycle of the apparent position of the Sun,
the word "tropical" also lent its name to the "tropical year". The
early Chinese, Hindus, Greeks, and others made approximate measures of
the tropical year.
Early value, precession discovery
In the 2nd century BC Hipparchus measured the time required for the Sun to travel from an equinox
to the same equinox again. He reckoned the length of the year to be
1/300 of a day less than 365.25 days (365 days, 5 hours, 55 minutes, 12
seconds, or 365.24667 days). Hipparchus used this method because he was
better able to detect the time of the equinoxes, compared to that of the
solstices (Meeus & Savoie 1992, p. 40).
Hipparchus also discovered that the equinoctial points moved along the ecliptic
(plane of the Earth's orbit, or what Hipparchus would have thought of
as the plane of the Sun's orbit about the Earth) in a direction opposite
that of the movement of the Sun, a phenomenon that came to be named
"precession of the equinoxes". He reckoned the value as 1° per century, a
value that was not improved upon until about 1000 years later, by Islamic astronomers. Since this discovery a distinction has been made between the tropical year and the sidereal year (Meeus & Savoie 1992, p. 40).
Middle Ages and the Renaissance
During
the Middle Ages and Renaissance a number of progressively better tables
were published that allowed computation of the positions of the Sun, Moon and planets relative to the fixed stars. An important application of these tables was the reform of the calendar.
The Alfonsine Tables, published in 1252, were based on the theories of Ptolemy and were revised and updated after the original publication; the most recent update in 1978 was by the French National Centre for Scientific Research.
The length of the tropical year was given as 365 solar days 5 hours 49
minutes 16 seconds (≈ 365.24255 days). This length was used in devising
the Gregorian calendar of 1582 (Meeus & Savoie 1992, p. 41).
In the 16th century Copernicus put forward a heliocentric cosmology. Erasmus Reinhold used Copernicus' theory to compute the Prutenic Tables
in 1551, and gave a tropical year length of 365 solar days, 5 hours, 55
minutes, 58 seconds (365.24720 days), based on the length of a sidereal year and the presumed rate of precession. This was actually less accurate than the earlier value of the Alfonsine Tables.
Major advances in the 17th century were made by Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton. In 1609 and 1619 Kepler published his three laws of planetary motion (McCarthy & Seidelmann 2009, p. 26). In 1627, Kepler used the observations of Tycho Brahe and Waltherus to produce the most accurate tables up to that time, the Rudolphine Tables. He evaluated the mean tropical year as 365 solar days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 45 seconds (365.24219 days; Meeus & Savoie 1992, p. 41).
Newton's three laws of dynamics and theory of gravity were published in his Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica in 1687. Newton's theoretical and mathematical advances influenced tables by Edmund Halley published in 1693 and 1749 (McCarthy & Seidelmann 2009, pp. 26–28) and provided the underpinnings of all solar system models until Albert Einstein's theory of General relativity in the 20th century.
18th and 19th century
From
the time of Hipparchus and Ptolemy, the year was based on two equinoxes
(or two solstices) a number of years apart, to average out both
observational errors and periodic variations (caused by the
gravitational pull of the planets, and the small effect of nutation
on the equinox). These effects did not begin to be understood until
Newton's time. To model short-term variations of the time between
equinoxes (and prevent them from confounding efforts to measure
long-term variations) requires precise observations and an elaborate
theory of the apparent motion of the Sun. The necessary theories and
mathematical tools came together in the 18th century due to the work of Pierre-Simon de Laplace, Joseph Louis Lagrange, and other specialists in celestial mechanics.
They were able to compute periodic variations and separate them from
the gradual mean motion. They could express the mean longitude of the
Sun in a polynomial such as:
- L0 = A0 + A1T + A2T2 days
where T is the time in Julian centuries. The derivative of
this formula is an expression of the mean angular velocity, and the
inverse of this gives an expression for the length of the tropical year
as a linear function of T.
Two equations are given in the table. Both equations estimate
that the tropical year gets roughly a half second shorter each century.
| Name | Equation | Date on which T = 0 |
|---|---|---|
| Leverrier (Meeus & Savoie 1992, p. 42) | Y = 365.24219647 − 6.24×10−6 T | January 0.5, 1900, Ephemeris time |
| Newcomb (1898) | Y = 365.24219879 − 6.14×10−6 T | January 0, 1900, mean time |
Newcomb's tables were sufficiently accurate that they were used by the joint American-British Astronomical Almanac for the Sun, Mercury, Venus, and Mars through 1983 (Seidelmann 1992, p. 317).
20th and 21st centuries
The
length of the mean tropical year is derived from a model of the solar
system, so any advance that improves the solar system model potentially
improves the accuracy of the mean tropical year. Many new observing
instruments became available, including
- artificial satellites
- tracking of deep space probes such as Pioneer 4 beginning in 1959 (Jet Propulsion Laboratory 2005)
- radars able to measure the distance to other planets beginning in 1961 (Butrica 1996)
- lunar laser ranging since the 1969 Apollo 11 left the first of a series of retroreflectors which allow greater accuracy than reflectorless measurements
- artificial satellites such as LAGEOS (1976) and the Global Positioning System (initial operation in 1993)
- Very Long Baseline Interferometry which finds precise directions to quasars in distant galaxies, and allows determination of the Earth's orientation with respect to these objects whose distance is so great they can be considered to show minimal space motion (McCarthy & Seidelmann 2009, p. 265).
The complexity of the model used for the solar system must be limited
to the available computation facilities. In the 1920s punched card
equipment came into use by L. J. Comrie in Britain. For the American Ephemeris an electromagnetic computer, the IBM Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator was used since 1948. When modern computers became available, it was possible to compute ephemerides using numerical integration rather than general theories; numerical integration came into use in 1984 for the joint US-UK almanacs (McCarthy & Seidelmann 2009, p. 32).
Einstein's General Theory of Relativity
provided a more accurate theory, but the accuracy of theories and
observations did not require the refinement provided by this theory
(except for the advance of the perihelion of Mercury) until 1984. Time
scales incorporated general relativity beginning in the 1970s (McCarthy & Seidelmann 2009, p. 37).
A key development in understanding the tropical year over long
periods of time is the discovery that the rate of rotation of the earth,
or equivalently, the length of the mean solar day, is not constant. William Ferrel in 1864 and Charles-Eugène Delaunay
in 1865 predicted that the rotation of the Earth is being retarded by
tides. This could be verified by observation only in the 1920's with the
very accurate Shortt-Synchronome clock and later in 1930s when quartz clocks began to replace pendulum clocks as time standards (McCarthy & Seidelmann 2009, ch. 9).
Time scales and calendar
Apparent solar time is the time indicated by a sundial,
and is determined by the apparent motion of the Sun caused by the
rotation of the Earth around its axis as well as the revolution of the
Earth around the Sun. Mean solar time
is corrected for the periodic variations in the apparent velocity of
the Sun as the Earths revolves in its orbit. The most important such
time scale is Universal Time, which is the mean solar time at 0 degrees longitude (the Greenwich meridian). Civil time is based on UT (actually UTC), and civil calendars count mean solar days.
However the rotation of the Earth itself is irregular and is
slowing down, with respect to more stable time indicators: specifically,
the motion of planets, and atomic clocks.
Ephemeris time
(ET) is the independent variable in the equations of motion of the
solar system, in particular, the equations from Newcomb's work, and this
ET was in use from 1960 to 1984 (McCarthy & Seidelmann 2009,
p. 378). These ephemerides were based on observations made in solar
time over a period of several centuries, and as a consequence represent
the mean solar second over that period. The SI second,
defined in atomic time, was intended to agree with the ephemeris second
based on Newcomb's work, which in turn makes it agree with the mean
solar second of the mid-19th century (McCarthy & Seidelmann 2009, pp. 81–2, 191–7). ET as counted by atomic clocks was given a new name, Terrestrial Time (TT), and for most purposes ET = TT = International Atomic Time
+ 32.184 SI seconds. Since the era of the observations the rotation of
the Earth has slown down and the mean solar second has grown somewhat
longer than the SI second. As a result the time scales of TT and UT1
build up a growing difference: the amount that TT is ahead of UT1 is
known as ΔT, or Delta T. As of January 2017, TT is ahead of UT1 by 69.184 seconds (International Earth Rotation Service 2017; McCarthy & Seidelmann 2009, pp. 86–7).
As a consequence, the tropical year following the seasons on
Earth as counted in solar days of UT is increasingly out of sync with
expressions for equinoxes in ephemerides in TT.
As explained below, long-term estimates of the length of the tropical year were used in connection with the reform of the Julian calendar,
which resulted in the Gregorian calendar. Participants in that reform
were unaware of the non-uniform rotation of the Earth, but now this can
be taken into account to some degree. The table below gives Morrison and Stephenson's (S & M) 2004 estimates and standard errors (σ) for ΔT at dates significant in the process of developing the Gregorian calendar.
| Event | Year | Nearest S & M Year | ΔT | σ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Julian calendar begins | −44 | 0 | 2h56m20s | 4m20s |
| First Council of Nicaea | 325 | 300 | 2h8m | 2m |
| Gregorian calendar begins | 1582 | 1600 | 2m | 20s |
| low-precision extrapolation | 4000 | 4h13m |
| |
| low-precision extrapolation | 10,000 | 2d11h |
|
The low-precision extrapolations are computed with an expression provided by Morrison & Stephenson (2004)
- ΔT in seconds = −20 + 32t2
where t is measured in Julian centuries from 1820. The extrapolation is provided only to show ΔT is not negligible when evaluating the calendar for long periods; Borkowski (1991, p. 126) cautions that "many researchers have attempted to fit a parabola to the measured ΔT
values in order to determine the magnitude of the deceleration of the
Earth's rotation. The results, when taken together, are rather
discouraging."
Length of tropical year
One
definition of the tropical year would be the time required for the Sun,
beginning at a chosen ecliptic longitude, to make one complete cycle of
the seasons and return to the same ecliptic longitude.
Mean time interval between equinoxes
Before considering an example, the equinox must be examined. There are two important planes in solar system calculations: the plane of the ecliptic (the Earth's orbit around the Sun), and the plane of the celestial equator (the Earth's equator projected into space). These two planes intersect in a line. One direction points to the so-called vernal, northward, or March equinox which is given the symbol ♈︎ (the symbol looks like the horns of a ram because it used to be toward the constellation Aries). The opposite direction is given the symbol ♎︎ (because it used to be toward Libra). Because of the precession of the equinoxes and nutation
these directions change, compared to the direction of distant stars and
galaxies, whose directions have no measurable motion due to their great
distance (see International Celestial Reference Frame).
The ecliptic longitude
of the Sun is the angle between ♈︎ and the Sun, measured eastward along
the ecliptic. This creates a relative and not an absolute measurement,
because as the Sun is moving, the direction the angle is measured from
is also moving. It is convenient to have a fixed (with respect to
distant stars) direction to measure from; the direction of ♈︎ at noon
January 1, 2000 fills this role and is given the symbol ♈︎0.
There was an equinox on March 20, 2009, 11:44:43.6 TT. The 2010
March equinox was March 20, 17:33:18.1 TT, which gives an interval - and
a duration of the tropical year - of 365 days 5 hours 48 minutes 34.5
seconds (Astronomical Applications Dept., 2009).
While the Sun moves, ♈︎ moves in the opposite direction . When the Sun
and ♈︎ met at the 2010 March equinox, the Sun had moved east 359°59'09"
while ♈︎ had moved west 51" for a total of 360° (all with respect to ♈︎0; Seidelmann 1992, p. 104, expression for pA). This is why the tropical year is 20 min. shorter than the sidereal year.
When tropical year measurements from several successive years are compared, variations are found which are due to the perturbations by the Moon and planets acting on the Earth, and to nutation. Meeus & Savoie (1992, p. 41) provided the following examples of intervals between March (northward) equinoxes:
| days | hours | min | s | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1985–1986 | 365 | 5 | 48 | 58 |
| 1986–1987 | 365 | 5 | 49 | 15 |
| 1987–1988 | 365 | 5 | 46 | 38 |
| 1988–1989 | 365 | 5 | 49 | 42 |
| 1989–1990 | 365 | 5 | 51 | 06 |
Until the beginning of the 19th century, the length of the tropical
year was found by comparing equinox dates that were separated by many
years; this approach yielded the mean tropical year (Meeus & Savoie 1992, p. 42).
Different tropical year definitions
If a different starting longitude for the Sun is chosen than 0° (i.e.
♈︎), then the duration for the Sun to return to the same longitude will
be different. This is a second-order effect of the circumstance that
the speed of the Earth (and conversely the apparent speed of the Sun)
varies in its elliptical orbit: faster in the perihelion, slower in the aphelion.
Now the equinox moves with respect to the perihelion (and both move
with respect to the fixed sidereal frame). From one equinox passage to
the next, the Sun completes not quite a full elliptic orbit. The time
saved depends on where it starts in the orbit. If the starting point is
close to the perihelion (such as the December solstice), then the speed
is higher than average, and the apparent Sun saves little time for not
having to cover a full circle: the "tropical year" is comparatively
long. If the starting point is near aphelion, then the speed is lower
and the time saved for not having to run the same small arc that the
equinox has precessed is longer: that tropical year is comparatively
short.
The following values of time intervals between equinoxes and solstices were provided by Meeus & Savoie (1992, p. 42) for the years 0
and 2000. These are smoothed values which take account of the Earth's
orbit being elliptical, using well-known procedures (including solving Kepler's equation).
They do not take into account periodic variations due to factors such
as the gravitational force of the orbiting Moon and gravitational forces
from the other planets. Such perturbations are minor compared to the
positional difference resulting from the orbit being elliptical rather
than circular.(Meeus 2002, p. 362)
| Year 0 | Year 2000 | |
|---|---|---|
| Between two Northward equinoxes | 365.242137 days | 365.242374 days |
| Between two Northern solstices | 365.241726 | 365.241626 |
| Between two Southward equinoxes | 365.242496 | 365.242018 |
| Between two Southern solstices | 365.242883 | 365.242740 |
| Mean tropical year (Laskar's expression) |
365.242310 | 365.242189 |
Mean tropical year current value
The mean tropical year on January 1, 2000 was 365.2421897 or 365 ephemeris days,
5 hours, 48 minutes, 45.19 seconds. This changes slowly; an expression
suitable for calculating the length of a tropical year in ephemeris
days, between 8000 BC and 12000 AD is
where T is in Julian centuries of 36,525 days of 86,400 SI seconds
measured from noon January 1, 2000 TT (in negative numbers for dates in
the past; McCarthy & Seidelmann 2009, p. 18, calculated from planetary model of Laskar 1986).
Modern astronomers define the tropical year as time for the Sun's
mean longitude to increase by 360°. The process for finding an
expression for the length of the tropical year is to first find an
expression for the Sun's mean longitude (with respect to ♈︎), such as
Newcomb's expression given above, or Laskar's expression (1986,
p. 64). When viewed over a one-year period, the mean longitude is very
nearly a linear function of Terrestrial Time. To find the length of the
tropical year, the mean longitude is differentiated, to give the angular
speed of the Sun as a function of Terrestrial Time, and this angular
speed is used to compute how long it would take for the Sun to move 360°
(Meeus & Savoie 1992, p. 42; Astronomical Almanac for the year 2011, L8).
The above formulae give the length of the tropical year in ephemeris days (equal to 86,400 SI seconds), not solar days.
It is the number of solar days in a tropical year that is important for
keeping the calendar in synch with the seasons (see below).
Calendar year
The Gregorian calendar,
as used for civil and scientific purposes, is an international
standard. It is a solar calendar that is designed to maintain synchrony
with the mean tropical year (Dobrzycki 1983,
p. 123). It has a cycle of 400 years (146,097 days). Each cycle repeats
the months, dates, and weekdays. The average year length is 146,097/400
= 365 97⁄400 = 365.2425 days per year, a close approximation to the mean tropical year (Seidelmann 1992, pp. 576–81).
The Gregorian calendar is a reformed version of the Julian
calendar. By the time of the reform in 1582, the date of the vernal
equinox had shifted about 10 days, from about March 21 at the time of
the First Council of Nicaea in 325, to about March 11. According to North (1983),
the real motivation for reform was not primarily a matter of getting
agricultural cycles back to where they had once been in the seasonal
cycle; the primary concern of Christians was the correct observance of
Easter. The rules used to compute the date of Easter
used a conventional date for the vernal equinox (March 21), and it was
considered important to keep March 21 close to the actual equinox (North 1983, pp. 75–76).
If society in the future still attaches importance to the
synchronization between the civil calendar and the seasons, another
reform of the calendar will eventually be necessary. According to
Blackburn and Holford-Strevens (who used Newcomb's value for the
tropical year) if the tropical year remained at its 1900 value of 365.24219878125
days the Gregorian calendar would be 3 days, 17 min, 33 s behind the
Sun after 10,000 years. Aggravating this error, the length of the
tropical year (measured in Terrestrial Time) is decreasing at a rate of
approximately 0.53 s per century. Also, the mean solar day is getting
longer at a rate of about 1.5 ms per century. These effects will cause
the calendar to be nearly a day behind in 3200. The number of solar days
in a "tropical millennium" is decreasing by about 0.06 per millennium
(neglecting the oscillatory changes in the real length of the tropical
year).
This means there should be fewer and fewer leap days as time goes on. A
possible reform would be to omit the leap day in 3200, keep 3600 and
4000 as leap years, and thereafter make all centennial years common
except 4500, 5000, 5500, 6000, etc. But the quantity ΔT is not sufficiently predictable to form more precise proposals (Blackburn & Holford-Strevens 2003, p. 692).
