Earth is at perihelion (closest point to the Sun) January 3rd/4th. This means that southern hemisphere summers are, on average, slightly warmer than northern hemisphere summers when the Earth is slightly farther from the Sun.
I think those of us in the northern hemisphere forget about those summers that are occurring down under while we are freezing our arses off here.
Earth is closest to the sun every year in early January, when it's winter for the Northern Hemisphere. We're farthest away from the sun in early July, during our Northern Hemisphere summer.
I know Earth is closest to heaven on Sunday. But Earth closest to the sun - no idea. As it happens, I have little interest in either sunbathing or astronomy. I do know that it is a fact that it was once proposed to insert a further month into the calendar, around June, July or August, and it was to be called Sol. I guess there was a good reason for it but I do not recall what it was - even supposing I understood it at the time. Like Esperanto, it probably seemed a good idea to many, but got nowhere for reason of lethargy and general disinterest and the ineffable magnetism of the status quo.
Earths orbit is elliptical.......it's about 580 million miles plus a bit ...we actually travel about one million six hundred each day....... And that one of the reasons my feet hurt so much and why I need 500 plus pairs of shoes.... so there....:)D
I'm afraid you believe mistakenly. The Earth's orbit is not a perfect circle but slightly elliptical, although not far off circular. The difference in distance is too small to make much difference to the weather though.
It's not a perfect ellipse, either - it "wobbles". Earth's orbit is perturbed by having a massive (in comparison to its primary), close-orbiting moon. It's not a significant deviation, but it's there.
Thank you for that addition - are the Earth & Moon in one of those binary orbits where both actually run round their common centre of mass (presumably within the Earth)?
They are - the common centre of mass is shifting closer to the centre of the Earth as the moon drifts further away. Soon after the moon was formed (after the Earth collided with the proto-planet Theia) the moon was much closer and the common centre of mass was in the mantle. Enormous tides, a furious rate of spin and the orbital deviation must have been huge. Less so now.
franc533 