How is Matthew 24:36 explained by trinitarians? In Matthew 24:36 Jesus is quoted saying, that even he does not know when the end of the world will come, only God (the Father) alone.

I'm interested in how the major trinitarian denominations explain this.
I think in order to understand things like this it is necessary to come to terms with how Jesus operated in his earthly ministry.

According to Phillipans 2:5 ff: 


  Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.


Traditional, orthodox Christian teaching is that Jesus, when on earth, was fully God and fully man at the same time.  In order to attain our salvation, the Godhead determined that the act of disobedience in the garden of Eden would be countered by an equal act of obedience.  To that end, by his own divine fiat Jesus, God the Son, chose to limit himself to an exercise of power equal to that which an obedient human could exercise.  That is, he emptied himself of his equality with God and for a time operated out of a limited human power.  

All that he knew while in this humbled state he knew because the Father revealed it to him through the Holy Spirit.  That is why we can do "these things and greater", because he operated in the same power and revelation that the Holy Spirit grants the church. As he himself said:


  So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise (John 5:19).


In theory at any time, Jesus could have shrugged off the mantel of humanity and resumed his Godly state; but had he done so our salvation would have been lost, perfect obedience would have been broken and the unity of the Trinity would have been shattered.  That last is why I say, in theory, because the area of understanding the dual natures of the Son is a deep mystery that the church can only explore and probe, but never fully understand until we see him in glory in the next life.  Then the great mysteries of God will be revealed to us. 

So when Jesus said that he, the Son, did not know the day or the hour of his second coming, he meant only that as the Son of Man (i.e. Jesus in his limited state during his earthly ministry) the Father had not revealed to him the time of his return, only that he would return.