You may think you know the answer
to the question, “When is the autumn season?” But do you? Watching the weather section of local news on
television or the internet, you could be excused for getting the beginning date
wrong because it is the meteorologist who has misled you. In itself, getting
the exact day right is not a big deal; it is not as if the temperature can be
expected to take a nose-dive on the first day of fall. The astonishing thing is
that so many meteorologists either knowingly or out of ignorance present the
astronomical beginning of the “autumn” quarter of the Earth’s orbit as the meteorological
start of fall, for the two are different yet admittedly related.
“According to The Old Farmer’s Almanac,
meteorological seasons are based on the temperature cycle in a calendar year.”[1]
The first month of a given season tends resemble the preceding season and the
last month anticipates the upcoming season. A season comes is fully its own in
its second month. Each season lasts three months. “Meteorological fall begins on
September 1” in the Northern Hemisphere and ends “exactly 90 days later, on
November 30. Winter then gets its three months. Growing up in a northern
Midwestern (U.S.) state, I just assumed that snowy March was part of winter. It
sure felt like that. Only later, while living in the Southwest, did I realize
that temperatures do start to go up in March.
Distinct but having an impact on
meteorological seasons, the astronomical seasons are “based on the position of Earth
in relation to the sun’s position.”[2]
There are such seasons because of the tilt of the Earth in relation to the sun.
On the summer solstice—the astronomical beginning of “summer”—the sun’s perpendicular
rays get the farthest north; the Northern Hemisphere tilts toward the sun. The Southern
Hemisphere is closest on the winter solstice—the astronomical beginning
of “winter.” Again, while growing up in the northern Midwest, I knew that
meteorological winter could not possibly start well into December just before Christmas,
for winter cold was well ensconced by that time. The meteorological start of
winter, on December 1st, is much more accurate in terms of temperature.
It is odd, therefore, that the start
dates of the astronomical seasons are “more commonly celebrated” even to mark
changes in weather.[3] A
weather site or television broadcast using the astronomical start-date is inherently
misleading, as the implication is incorrect. Even though Accuweather.com states,
“Astronomical autumn officially arrives on Saturday, Sept. 23 at 2:50 a.m. EDT,
a few weeks after the arrival of meteorological fall,” the presentation of the
two starts by a weather organization may be confusing, especially as the
paragraph continues with: “Regardless of which date you celebrate the start of
autumn, . . .”[4] In
an article on the fall weather forecast, two start-dates for that
seasons are given.
This is
definitely misleading—or is it the case that local weather personalities do not
realize their mistakes? At the very least, the television meteorologists astonishingly
do not realize that they are giving false information—that they are misleading
the public. It is absurd, at least in the northern tier of U.S. member states
to say that summer does not begin until June 21st and that winter
does not begin until a few days before Christmas. To stick with something that is
so obviously absurd and incorrect when meteorologists should know better
is precisely the cognitive phenomenon that I want to highlight here.
Perhaps the culprit is cognitive dissidence:
the brain holding two contradictory thoughts at the same time. I know this
date is astronomical AND I am using it on a weather forecast AND I know that
the meteorological date is different. This weakness or vulnerability of the
human brain may mean that there are others.
Regarding religious and political
ideological beliefs, the brain may be susceptible to “short-circuiting”
an internal check that would otherwise keep the brain from conflating belief
with knowledge. A person once told me that Michele Obama is really a
man. I disagreed. The person replied, “That’s just your opinion; I have the
facts.” I said that I did not want to discuss politics. “It’s not political,”
she replied. My claim to the contrary was, again, “just an opinion.” I was
stunned at such ignorance that couldn’t be wrong. Next, she wrote a nonsensical “deep state”
political coded message on an index card. That her brain would not entertain
the possibility that it could be in error is precisely the vulnerability that I
contend plagues the brain as it ventures into political and religious domains
of cognitions. In short, I suggest that a healthy human brain has more
cognitive weaknesses than merely being subjective, and that society is overwhelmingly
oblivious to them.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Brian Lada, “AccuWeather’s 2023 US Fall Forecast,” Accuweather.com, July 26, 2023.
