"But the shifting proximity between Earth and sun is not without earthly impact. According to NASA, when we are closest to the sun, the average sunlight hitting the planet is about seven percent greater than it is at aphelion in July. We don’t really notice because the Southern Hemisphere is better equipped to deal with it. Land absorbs more heat than water, and the Southern Hemisphere has more water than land. So even though it is receiving more light during its summer than the Northern Hemisphere, it has less land mass to capture and retain the heat. Consequently, on average, a Vermont summer is warmer than summer in say, Sydney, Australia.
Not only does the Northern Hemisphere absorb more heat than its southern counterpart, but the summers here are longer. That’s because at aphelion “there is slightly less gravitational force from the sun in our summer (Southern Hemisphere’s winter), so the Earth moves a little slower in its orbit, lengthening the season,” said Mark Breen, senior meteorologist at the Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium. “We are closer to the sun in winter, increasing the gravitational effects of the sun, increasing our orbital speed, and lessening the number of days of winter.” While it may not always seem so, we Northerners experience about 94 days of summer, but only 89 days of winter."
