From the UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
When the moon is high in the sky, it creates bulges in the planet’s atmosphere that creates imperceptible changes in the amount of rain that falls below.
New University of Washington research to be published in Geophysical Research Lettersshows that the lunar forces affect the amount of rain – though very slightly.
“As far as I know, this is the first study to convincingly connect the tidal force of the moon with rainfall,” said corresponding author Tsubasa Kohyama, a UW doctoral student in atmospheric sciences.
Kohyama was studying atmospheric waves when he noticed a slight oscillation in the air pressure. He and co-author John (Michael) Wallace, a UW professor of atmospheric sciences, spent two years tracking down the phenomenon.
Air pressure changes linked to the phases of the moon were first detected in 1847,and temperature in 1932, in ground-based observations. An earlier paper by the UW researchers used a global grid of data to confirm that air pressure on the surface definitely varies with the phases of the moon.
“When the moon is overhead or underfoot, the air pressure is higher,” Kohyama said.
Their new paper is the first to show that the moon’s gravitational tug also puts a slight damper on the rain.
When the moon is overhead, its gravity causes Earth’s atmosphere to bulge toward it, so the pressure or weight of the atmosphere on that side of the planet goes up. Higher pressure increases the temperature of air parcels below. Since warmer air can hold more moisture, the same air parcels are now farther from their moisture capacity.
“It’s like the container becomes larger at higher pressure,” Kohyama said. The relative humidity affects rain, he said, because “lower humidity is less favorable for precipitation.”
Kohyama and Wallace used 15 years of data collected by NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite from 1998 to 2012 to show that the rain is indeed slightly lighter when the moon is high. The change is only about 1 percent of the total rainfall variation, though, so not enough to affect other aspects of the weather or for people to notice the difference.
“No one should carry an umbrella just because the moon is rising,” Kohyama said. Instead, this effect could be used to test climate models, he said, to check if their physics is good enough to reproduce how the pull of the moon eventually leads to less rain.
Wallace plans to continue exploring the topic to see whether certain categories of rain, like heavy downpours, are more susceptible to the phases of the moon, and whether the frequency of rainstorms shows any lunar connection.
###
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the Tanaka Ikueikai Scholarship Society, and the Iizuka Takeshi Scholarship Foundation.
I am slightly confused by the opening lines,
‘When the moon is high in the sky, it creates bulges in the planet’s atmosphere that creates imperceptible changes in the amount of rain that falls below.’
If the changes are imperceptible they can’t be measured so the Moon’s influence can’t be proved.
When the moon is high in the sky, it creates bulges in the planet’s atmosphere that creates imperceptible changes in the amount of rain that falls below.
ITYM ‘perceptible’.
Science doesn’t deal with ‘ imperceptible’.
There are imperceptible Unicorns at the bottom of my garden having sex with imperceptible fairies.
Yes, I literally fall apart when I read that misuse of language.
HA, t’was about a year ago that I posted a comment about the observed correlation between the Moon changing phases (to Full Moon or to New Moon) …. and the effect said phase change causing a predictable “increase” in near-surface temperatures ……. but Willis E responded to my comment with satirical rhetoric inferring that I was a wee bit “wacko” and ignorant in/of the Physical Sciences.
Ha, another charming fellow who wants to abuse my name for saying something, but doesn’t have either the common decency or the albondigas to link to what I actually said so we can find out if he’s telling porkies or not …
Samuel, you’ve been reading this blog for a while. You must know that I don’t put up with your kind of vague accusations. Point us to your claimed conversation with me or stop whining—that kind of character assassination just make you look childish.
w.
Willis, the only problem is that you know damn well that it was not a “vague accusation” on my part …… but was surely a “vague accusation” on your part for inferring that I am a dastardly devious dishonest person who launched a personal attack to defame your credibility.
HA, I now realize that I should have expended 3 hours searching for the above noted two (2) to three (3) year old posted comment prior to mentioning said in my above post ……. rather than referencing it in my above post and then expending the past 3 hours searching for the above noted two (2) to three (3) year old posted comment to discredit your accusation of me being untruthful and/or a liar. DUH, I do not save a direct link to every comment that I have ever posted on WUWT.
And Willis, I know you well enough to know that you literally detest anyone or anything that questions the contents or context of your posted verbiage.
“ And, spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite,
One truth is clear, whatever is, is right. ”
(Alexander Pope)
Samuel, you still have not given us either a quotation of my words or a link to whatever it was I said that prompted your first comment, wherein you claim I addressed you “with satirical rhetoric” etc.
As a result, neither I nor anyone else knows what has you so exercised. Just what “satirical rhetoric” would you like to discuss, and why are you refusing to identify it? Perhaps I did you wrong, perhaps not … but you are withholding the very information we need to resolve the question.
I can only reply by repeating what I said last time. Point us to whatever it is you are talking about. I can defend my own words. I cannot defend your personal interpretation of unknown words.
w.
PS—It is exactly this lack of information that I am calling a “vague accusation”. You have accused me of saying wrong things, but you have refused to tell me either what I said or where I said it. That’s vague.
Willis, you are 101% correct.
I can not prove my “vague” accusation without a url link to my “Moon Phase” comment and/or your response to said. But I learned early on to be very careful “who” one admonishes or criticizes because such commentary is not permitted …… regardless if it is true and/or factual.
HA, iffen there was a good logical “SEARCH” function for the data base then I could probably find the commentary in question via the use of “key words” ……….. if it still exists as entered on the data base.
DUH, I attempted to search for postings with my name …. but it responded with “no entries found”. Utterly amazing, ….. HUH?
Cheers, Sam C
“When the Moon fills, so does the sky”. WOW! new science discovery!
Farmers have known this for thousands of years
Give these guys another larger grant.
Maybe they would want to discover if the moons position has any effect on the local sea levels…pg
Well said. I saved many lives by correctly predicting a severe drought five years out in Swaziland in 1978. It only has to happen once to be very convincing. At the same time I predicted the heavy rainfall and look winter temperatures in 2011-2013, which also “came to pass”. Next up is a drought centered on 2021.
Crispin in Waterloo February 1, 2016 at 6:18 am
Without documentation, I fear this is just a boast. I also doubt very much that you correctly predicted low winter temperatures of 2012 way back in 1978.
And if you think that “a drought centered on 2021” is an actual prediction, it’s not. A drought where? How deep a drought? How long a drought?
You’re starting to sound like Piers Corbyn, who once predicted wildfires in Colorado, and claimed success when there were wildfires in Arizona … and he also predicted a 50% chance of a Pacific typhoon and claimed success when there was no typhoon.
So I’m sorry, Crispin, but I’ve heard these kinds of claims before, and hey, guess what?
I’m skeptical. Go figure.
But heck, I’m willing to be convinced. All you need to do is to point us to where we can verify just what your predictions were at the time, and when you made them.
w.
PS—While it is easy to say “it only has to happen once to be very convincing”, there is actually an old saying about that illusion, which goes
So while it seems that you are all agog with your claimed success at finding one acorn, the rest of the world is not so easily impressed.
Perhaps I am wrong, but I took Crispin’s remarks to be tongue in cheek and not serious.
Mr. Crispin?
Crispin, my thanks for bringing up the topic of African droughts. It led me to a most interesting overview of African droughts, which I’m still digesting.
One finding was that from 1978 to the near-present (2013), there were five droughts recorded in Swaziland. These occurred in 1981, 1984, 1990, 2001, and 2007, and in total they killed 500 people.
I also found out that by African standards this is a very, very small number. For example, over the same time period drought killed over 100,000 people in Mozambique alone …
And I don’t mean to diminish the fact that your warning actually saved lives, that’s always a wonderful thing no matter how it happens.
I’m just saying, I wouldn’t put a lot of weight on your prognostication method without further testing, even hindcasting.
w.
Willis Eschenbach– I was in Mozambiques as FAO expert during 1984-1989/90. I used to present 10-day, monthly & seasonal bulletins. For the year 1987-’88 crop season drought condition for Mozambique. Presented before a committee headed by the Prime Minister, attended by UNDP Resident representative, FAO Resident Representative, ten developed nation [Ambassadors]. They accepted my report and UNDP Resident Representative asked me go round the country and verify the same and submit the final report. He [kept a] twin Engine jet for my visits as there is no way I can go by road as most of them were [mined] by rebels fighting against the government. I [submitted] my final report and the same was published in FAO Food Aid appeal. On request prepared a small note to President’s meet with the media and the same was briefed to the press by The President. Next Day an Agriculture Officer issued a note to press saying that his province is reeling under severe drought. Presnt ?Office enquired on this and the message was issued dismissing the official and posting another officer in his plays. All this happened in minutes.
In 1984 I drove to Swaziland and purchased a new Volswagen Car and drove back [250 km]. There was no problem at that time. Within few days the situation changed. This affected the people in getting food from one region to another region.
All my publications on Mozambique are the INIA library.
Durban in South Africa, Mahalapye in Botswana and Catuane in Mozambique presented 66-year, 60-year and 54-year cycles along with sub-multiple. Though they differed in duration but followed the W followed by M pattern only. 2013 was a drought year. This was also true with northeast Brazil [52 year cycle] — all these are published.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
[“Presnt ?Office enquired” should be ??? .mod]
Amateur astronomers usually prefer observing during periods when the moon is not present in the night sky (the last week or so of a waning moon or the first week or so of a new moon.) Many astronomers have remarked that it seems to be cloudier than usual during those times. Is it just that cloudier times are more commonly noticed then, or is the effect real? A search of astronomical literature might find that such a study has been done.
It is one ten thousandths cloudier Jason.
Good eye!
Yes, it has taken years to develop such a fine discrimination! I have also noticed that the mosquitoes are hungrier on observing nights. 🙂
Yes, and the bread always falls butter side down and it always rains at the weekend when it’s been sunny all week. 😉
I for one am not buying this using only the data presented here.
Selective data selection could explain this result very handily.
Color me skeptical.
To put another number into this discussion, I read years ago that the Queen Mary (the ship, not the person) was 30 pounds lighter under a full moon. From a Wikipedia entry I see that she displaced just under 82,000 tons (81,961 tons, to be exact).
Ian M
Questions not to answer, no matter how nicely she asks, include:
“Does the silvery light of the moon make my butt look fat?”
No. Your being 50 lbs overweight makes your butt look fat.
Cool, tip Ian, I’ll tell my wife how to loose 30lbs, she weighs about the same the Queen Mary. 😉
Some romantic evening, you might want to stand on her bow, arms outstretched and shout, “I am king of the world!” 🙂
What is Australian Bureau of Meteorology trying to hide?
http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com.au/2014/06/what-is-australian-bureau-of.html
Control CO2 emissions, and we control moon phase and VOILA! Problem solved
My first reaction was. The moon warms the atmosphere. OMG, we’re all gonna die.
How long until the usual voices demand that we nuke the moon, or send it off into space, or do SOMETHING?
The phase of the moon has nothing to do with it being directly overhead. The moon is overhead once every ~25 hours.
I was a bit surprised at the somewhat cool reception of this paper by a few commenters , because , although the practical effect is small , it immediately arouses the “what – if ” response. Eg what would the effect be on climate if the earth , like Venus , had no moon , or just 2 small rocks like Mars . And if the atmosphere bulges as a response , does the TOA emission fall , because the TOA is colder , increasing when the bulge passes , and could this give a rachet effect which , imperceptible daily, nevertheless has an observable effect after many 10s of thousands of cycles? Do Jupiter and Saturn have analogous effects on the Sun’s atmosphere?
Also , until Mike above , supplied the link I was looking for it in the latest issue of Geophys Res Lett and found a few crackers of interest to people here , eg:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015GL065074/full
“A glimpse beneath Antarctic sea ice: Platelet layer volume from multifrequency electromagnetic induction sounding” Hunkler et al I have cherry picked this sentence from the abstract which will surely interest some here:
“Our results suggest that platelet layer volume is higher than previously thought in this region and that platelet layer ice volume fraction is proportional to its thickness. We conclude that multifrequency EM is a suitable tool to determine platelet layer volume, with the potential to obtain crucial knowledge of associated processes in otherwise inaccessible ice shelf cavities.”
There are other articles of interest to climate change fans or sceptics , such as one showing longterm rainfall increase in Sahel from 1985 (with multiyear variation superimposed- bad news: temporarily dropping for about next 2-3 years) .
There is another on human influence on cold and warm record breaking episodes in Europe which seems to state that at present we are still within the realm of natural variability , but with the “business – as – usual” scenario model will see human influence on cold records dominant by 2020 and on warm records by 2030 (with uncertainty of +/- 20 years ). Not quite the impression given by the hysterical mass media and BBC.
Well worth posting AW , thank you and a useful reminder that there is so much available in places like Geophys Res Lett and much of it open access.
So if they are really “imperceptible,” first, how do we perceive them? Second, why should we care?
I think the writer really meant to say “miniscule'” by the why should we care question remains hanging.
Don K
Tides would be a lot smaller on a water only planet. The reflected waves caused by the continents set up resonant patterns that make the amplitude build up.
I can’t recall the exact figures but if there were not continents, there would be something more like the ideal ‘bulges’ but they would only few cm hight.
I’m sure someone on this blog will be able to remove my confusion re this statement:
If the atmosphere is drawn towards the moon, wouldn’t that create a thinning of the atmosphere and REDUCE the air pressure? The moon’s gravitational pull would draw that air towards it, not the surface of the earth underneath it to create higher pressures.
I’m still pondering the higher pressure increasing temperature because the higher temp will thin out the air and counteract the higher pressure (as the atmosphere is an open vessel so no increase in pressure as would occur in a closed vessel) which stops the pressure/temp effect (then my mind shuts down).
That’s a good point . That’s why I always want to see and implement the equations before being certain I understand anything .
Bob there’s a pretty good description of their method in the paper. If you want to check their work, go for it. Any paper requires validation by being reproduced so that would be useful.
Wish I had time . I’m working get out an accessible version of 4th.CoSy with some “marketing” material by MidWinter ( Thursday ) for the exremophiles out there . CoSy needs more heads .
Computations like this will have to wait until the language is mature enough to express them as or more succinctly as in any traditional APL . Right now , it’s still on the raw Forth side more suitable for implementing complex algorithms in low power instrumentation .
I haven’t even read HockeySchtick’s analysis in detail because I want to be able to implement his equations in 4th.CoSy as I go .
John in Oz. The moon doesn’t only pull the immediate atmosphere it pull atmosphere from either side, too. This means the bulge is more massive (higher pressure) than it was before.
For the curious, here is NASA’s explanation of the tidal forces:
To all outward appearances, the moon revolves around the earth, but in actuality, the moon and earth revolve together around their common center of mass, or gravity. The two astronomical bodies are held together by gravitational attraction, but are simultaneously kept apart by an equal and opposite centrifugal force produced by their individual revolutions around the center-of-mass of the earth-moon system. This balance of forces in orbital revolution applies to the center-of-mass of the individual bodies only. At the earth’s surface, an imbalance between these two forces results in the fact that there exists, on the hemisphere of the earth turned toward the moon, a net (or differential) tide-producing force which acts in the direction of the moon’s gravitational attraction, or toward the center of the moon. On the side of the earth directly opposite the moon, the net tide-producing force is in the direction of the greater centrifugal force, or away from the moon.
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/restles3.html
These forces are used by XTIDE to predict tides and currents at locations around the world.
http://tbone.biol.sc.edu/tide/index.html
Gentlemen, the initiation of this discussion was the phases of the moon, nothing to do with tides. The 28 days of lunar cycle, menstruations or not, do not fit with our 30 and 31 day monrhs and so our rainfall patterns slowly cycle up and down the months and Ken Ring the moon man has it to a tee! http://www.predictweather.co.nz/
Yes, Jon, I found that a bit counter intuitive as well. It think it due to the press release, whoever wrote that. Read the paper, it available in full:
It seems that they are saying that there is a pressure drop *before* the bulge arrives. That makes more sense. Contrary to the ocean tides which get pulled ahead of the moon by the rotation of the earth’s continental boundaries , leading to tidal drag, I think the atmospheric bulge will lag the passage of the moon in a more conventional way.
Anthony: full paper and SI here, you may like to add that to the post.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015GL067342/full
in 1913 Albert Michelson measured the force of gravity and showed simultaneously that the moon’s gravity makes the *earth* rise and fall – just not as much as the seas. Obviously the atmosphere is also subject to the tides, resulting in tidal variations of air pressure which should be small compared to the stochastic variations due to weather systems.
I have to wonder how the rainfall rates in units of fractions of *micrometers per hour* are calculated when actual rainfall rates are measured in centimeters per hour – numbers over four orders of magnitude larger.
Seem to remember reading in Farmers Almanac that the best time to plant seeds outside is with a waxing moon. Who knew!
As a periodic buyer of forest cut fence posts in the tropics the woodsmen always tell me they have to wait for the “right” time of the moon or the posts will not last as long. One american bought beautiful looking posts the locals told me wouldn’t last because he rushed to have them cut before he flew home. The locals disdained the person who cut those posts without regard to the moon for not having been honest with that american.
The rafters in my original farm building were also forest trees cut according to that moon lore, as have other rafters over the years, The jargon is they are “full” (heavy without moisture) & those stripped of bark for painting with used motor oil last even better (recycling isn’t just for the greenies).
Old school medicinal plant extracts also synchronized with moon phase. For alcohol extraction (tincturing)the standard practise was to begin the plant matter immersion when the moon is new & then filter out the
plant matter at the full moon. If the formulator wanted to (or circumstances intervened) let the extraction go longer then under no circumstances was the final filtering out to occur until a subsequent new moon or later. It was explained to me that building up to the full moon the alcohol solvent drew into itself good factors & after the full moon cycled in there was some reduction of desirable factors in the alcohol; supposedly (was told) the plant matter reabsorbs some desirable solutes & yet it may be related to ratio of desirable compounds solubilized.
Mike Wallace has know about the Lunar Nodal cycle in precipitation records longer than I have.
Furthermore, the Lunar Gravity field causes the solid earth to have a bulge toward the moon, which is in a locked orbit with the earth.
This causes the earth center of figure to deviate significantly from the earth center of mass. And we enjoy plate tectonics.
Ha ha
Like many clime papers, they visit only half the area of interest. The bulge in the atmosphere is not just the air below the moon being drawn upwards. It is also the air dragged in from the sides of the bulge – this is why it is more massive and higher pressure. I would have thought thinking scientists with this problem would have also investigated the effect of the lowered pressure adjacent to the bulge to determine how much INCREASED rain there was. The real result to be found is that the rain didn’t diminish this tiny amount, it was redistributed. I guess no prizes for me, though for thinking superior to that of the authors.
I don’t understand why the bulge would create higher pressure. The bulge is created by the pull of gravity from the moon. So wouldn’t that pull offset a small portion of the Earth’s gravity that is equal to the mass of the bulge and therefore have little or no affect on the pressure below?
Ken Ring has been making long range climate and rainfall predictions based on the phases and proximity of the moon for years.
With Mr. Obama’s Climate program, we will finally be able to control the Moon Phase!
When the crescent is pointing upward, it is holding the rain, then as the crescent tips, the water spills out.