How are the seasons affected by precession?
As the Earth’s axis of rotation precesses, the angle always remains 23.5 with respect to the ecliptic, so the Earth will still experience seasons. However, the position in the orbit at which it’s summer or winter will slowly vary over the course of 26,000 years. For instance, consider the orbital position now corresponding to summertime in the Northern Hemisphere i.e. tilted towards the Sun. In that same place 13,000 years from now, we will actually be tipped away from the Sun and so it will be winter instead. By the way, this axis precession phenomenon is sometimes called “precession of the equinoxes”, because the equinox points in the orbit (and also the solstice points) slowly move around the Earth’s orbit with a period of 26,000 years.
