Hi, everyone!

 I live in Ireland. From about the middle of October I noticed that nightfall occured earlier than the last year; by the end of the month, it occured approximately 1.5 hours earlier. I asked my friends in Ireland, Sweden and Russia whether they noticed the same: almost all of them did. However, I found no news or recent scientific publications regarding these changes. Anyone knows what's happening?

Nothing has changed, unless you have the equivalent of "Daylight Savings Time" in Ireland, and turn your clocks back in the autumn.

 We need more information.

Especially what time you guys have been getting out of the pub!

johnm:

Especially what time you guys have been getting out of the pub!

That's funny! 

Perception is a tricky thing.  As humans we can easily perceive things to be other than they are due to selective memory and reinforcement by others.

I suspect that is what has happened to Laidback and his friends.  Perhaps last year the weather was clearer allowing the sun to illuminate the sky longer as compared to the current cloudy weather which blocks the true sunset making it appear to get darker earlier.  It could also be just a faulty belief that it seems to be getting darker this year than the last.

One can visit this site:

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/sunrise.html

to determine the actual sunrise/sunset times.  A quick look at Copenhagen Denmark shows that last year the sun set one minute earlier than this year on November 4.  In Dublin the sun set on Nov. 4, 2008 at 4:47pm and this year it set at 4:46.

So there is nothing amiss in hte sunset times being changed radically over last year, just the usual steady changes caused by the earth's natural tilt and the imperfect calandars we humans make to keep track of such things.

L

If they were truly amateur astronomers, I would think they wouldn't mind it getting darker earlier! I certainly wouldn't mind! Looks like they didn't do any research before making the post. It's certainly not getting darker earlier here!

JJ

johnjohnson:

If they were truly amateur astronomers, I would think they wouldn't mind it getting darker earlier! I certainly wouldn't mind

I for one am happy that Daylight Savings Time is over.  I hate having it extended to the end of October.  Once my work stops trying to kill me with massive overtime I will be outside after 5PM having a look.  It will be nice not being restricted to Friday and Saturday nights.

L

Welcome to the discussion group, Laidback.

When did daylight savings (summer) time end this year in Ireland, Sweden and Russia?   Was there a significant change in the date since last year?  Keep in mind that even after taking daylight savings time into account, the Sun sets much earlier at the end of October than at the beginning.  Did you keep records of the sunset times this year and last?  Have you checked your local newspapers for sunset times in October this year and last?  There really should be no meaningful differences.

Curt I think they would have ended the same time as us. They're in the same timezone afterall.
O.K. that may not be a reason, but hey What the heck.

We changed back to GMT on 24/25 of October.

Unless they are doing something rather odd up there the sunsets here in the Pacific Time Zone were the latest on record since World War II for the month of October relative to local time and last year.  Since we set our clocks back an hour on November 1 rather than October 11 nightfall fell later not earlier for my area.

L

Seasonal changes. It's autumn now so the sun sets earlier for northern hemisphere dwellers.