Why are solar eclipses more common in the southern hemisphere?

I see no reason for it, and no mention of it anywhere else.

Indeed, if you look at the list of solar eclipses in the 21$^\mathrm{st}$ century, you'll see also a column containing the coordinates on the Earth's surface where the eclipse peak will be.

I took that column and put it in a text editor. I then counted the number of occurrences for $^\circ N$ and $^\circ S$, and I found

$$ \matrix{ ^\circ N:& \mathrm{occurred\ 114\ times} \\ ^\circ S:& \mathrm{occurred\ 110\ times} } $$

So the statement on slashdot seems to be false (at least for the 21$^{\mathrm{st}}$ century).

You could repeat the process, taking only the total eclipses:

$$ \matrix{ ^\circ N:& \mathrm{occurred\ 33\ times} \\ ^\circ S:& \mathrm{occurred\ 35\ times} } $$

from which we conclude the same.

You can repeat the same for the 19$^{\mathrm{th}}$, 20$^{\mathrm{th}}$, 22$^{\mathrm{nd}}$ and 23$^{\mathrm{rd}}$ centuries, with the same outcome: they occur just as frequently on the Northern as on the Southern hemisphere.

I realize this is not really a proof of any kind, but frankly, the burden of proof is not on my side here :)


I can't find any convenient statistics, but feel compelled to write something by the kneejerk answers and comments.

A solar eclipse needs to occur when the Sun is visible from that hemisphere. i.e. More eclipses should occur in northern and southern summers and this effect should be symmetric between hemispheres (though see below).

The Earth's orbit is slightly elliptical. Perihelion, when the Earth is closest to the Sun and the Sun has its largest apparent angular size in the sky, is about January 3rd. This is during southern summer. The peak to peak difference in angular size is about 3% over the year. This makes it more probable that the Moon can intercept some part of the Sun during southern summer, but less likely to totally eclipse it.

However, this small effect might be counterbalanced by the fact that the Earth moves quicker in its orbit during southern summer, making southern summer shorter by a few days.

Overall, I would therefore perhaps expect a small effect where there would be fewer total eclipses, but more partial eclipses in the southern hemisphere.

But either way, the notion is not to be summarily dismissed and you probably need statistics over millennia to see it.