WUWT reader “ES” writes: It is not bad enough we have global warning but, now we have warming on the moon. “increased from 1.6 C to 3.5 C over the roughly six-year period measurements were being taken.”
Astronauts’ movement increased subsurface temperatures on the moon, study finds.
The presence of astronauts on the moon caused an unexpected warming of its subsurface temperatures for a period of time in the 1970s, a new study has found after delving into “lost” tapes from the Apollo missions.
In 1971 and 1972, NASA deployed sensors on the moon during the Apollo 15 and 17 missions in an effort to measure the moon’s surface and subsurface temperatures — a project dubbed the heat flow experiment.
Data was collected and beamed back down to Earth until 1977, where scientists were baffled by the gradual warming of the moon’s surface being read by the sensors.
NASA ultimately abandoned the research due to a lack of funding, and only some of the tapes were archived, with the others assumed lost, leaving scientists unable to analyze it further.
But those missing tapes were found recently in the National Archives, said study co-author Walter Kiefer, a senior staff scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute. He and his team spent years recovering and interpreting the data in order to pinpoint the source of the warming.
Specifically, the decades-old data showed the moon’s subsurface temperatures — in some areas as deep as three metres — increased from 1.6 C to 3.5 C over the roughly six-year period measurements were being taken.
Bright vs. dark
The moon consists primarily of two different types of rock: anorthosite and basalt. Anorthosite is light in colour and makes the moon bright, while basalt, which is common on Earth, is darker and appears as the maria, or “seas,” on the moon.
Lighter-coloured surfaces reflect more energy outward, while darker surfaces absorb energy.
Using photos from the extremely high-resolution camera aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) orbiting the moon, the scientists determined that as astronauts walked or drove on the moon, it disturbed the anorthosite lunar soil — also known as regolith — left over from billions of years of bombardment from space rocks.
That disruption exposed the darker soil, which then absorbed more of the sun’s energy and ultimately raised the moon’s temperatures.
“You can actually see the astronauts tracks, where they walked,” Kiefer said. “And we can see … where they scuffed dirt up — and what it leaves behind is a darker path. In other words, the astronauts walking on the moon changed the structure of the regolith … in such a way that made it a little bit darker.”
Over years, that energy propagated downward and deeper into the lunar surface, which is what appeared on the newly acquired data record.
Eventually the temperatures would have reached an equilibrium as absorption stopped, said Kiefer, noting it may have already happened.
Since Neil Armstrong took those historic first steps on July 20, 1969, 11 others have walked on the moon.
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The important question is where those stations incorporated into HadCRUT4?
Given how much money was spent to set up those experiments, it’s close to criminal that those tapes were allowed to be misplaced.
MarkW,
It isn’t the first time that NASA has lost or sold priceless data or artifacts.
“Astronauts’ movement increased subsurface temperatures on the moon, study finds.”
Complete and utter bollocks
I am so tired of junk science
The moon not just has global warming, but most of all a greenhouse effect. With the sun in the zenith, lunar surface should yield a temperature of ((1368*(1-0.13)) / 5.67e-8)^0.25 = 380,6K.
with..
1368W/m2 .. solar radiation
0.13 .. albedo
5.67e-8 .. Stephan Boltzmann constant
As the diviner data show, the moon becomes much hotter than this, well above 390K.
http://pds-geosciences.wustl.edu/lro/lro-l-dlre-4-rdr-v1/lrodlr_1001/browse/gdr_l2/2009/cylindrical/jpg/dgdr_tb8_avg_cyl_20090920d_001_jpg.jpg
The same is true for average surface temperatures on the moon. I know it is a way hard to understand for most people how to calculate an average surface temperature of a sphere allowing the Boltzmann law and the uneven temperature distribution, so I will not try to explain it. The result is about 276K for the moon anyhow.
These 276K again are well above the theoretical temperature of the moon, if you use the common formula. It is (as above) .. ((342*(1-0.13)) / 5.67e-8)^0.25 = 269.1K. So again we have a GHE on the moon of roughly 7K. But do not have an atmosphere that could cause it.
It will not matter if we look at average or peak surface temperatures. The moon is simply far too warm. And this example, next to many others, only shows that an ill fated theoretical apprach will always result in “GHEs” despite they are not real.
They left out the butterfly wings that ’caused’ all of this.
So if the moon’s temperature increased by 1.9 C, the back radiation from the moon increased and is going to fry the Earth like an egg. We’re certainly all doomed.
What about the dust blown away at the landing site, courtesy touch down and lift off? It will have covered quite an area when settled down.
I guess that is because they cut down all the trees to stoke the boiler of the rocket.
Hmm. Raised the temperature from 1.6c to 3.5c. That is neither boiling hot as when the surface is facing the Sun or frigid as when the surface is turned away from the Sun. Even if it is assumed that the area of disturbance is the only area that is heating up, that heat would have to be drawn away almost immediately by the underlying planetary mass, and while in the shadow, would be radiating heat at a higher rate as well. Interesting indeed that it could accumulate a net temperature gain, much less 1.9c. All in 6 years. Since there is no dust movement on the basically airless surface, then those same areas are still gaining this heat – no reason for it to stop, really, just because the sensors died.
it has been 42 years, then, since the sensors stopped recording and transmitting the temperatures. That’s 7 times the period, so it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect that the area has, in fact continued to gain heat – perhaps at a slower rate, but still, it should continue to gain heat, thus raising the temperature perhaps as much as 10c more. You should almost be able to read that degree of temperature difference from the space station, if not from the Earth using the correct equipment.
I am trying to pretend this analysis was legitimate and not a joke, but the more you “think” about it from a realistic point, the more surrealistic it gets.
“Hmm. Raised the temperature from 1.6c to 3.5c”
This is greater than the amount of heating caused by a doubling of CO2. The moon is DOOMED!
Except that it has no oceans to boil, or even sea level to rise. Maybe the regolith will melt.
What, no oceans or sea level? What about the Sea of Tranquility????
It will vaporise and turn to dust, Oh Wait!
Actually, this is good news, this tidbit shows how UHI near weather stations is the real reason for global warming, whichever globe you’re talking about.
The best way to solve all the destruction of the moon caused by man walking and driving ATVs and landing drones on it is to just use the Lunar Global Average modeling approach and we will be able to sleep tonight. But that still doesn’t answer my concern as to what would happen if a 1 kg block of sharp cheddar cheese was left there. Would it turn green?
Question: Is the lunar surface not struck by asteroids/meteors/other space junk all the time? What could a shuffled footprint (or from a takeoff/landing of a spacecraft) really do in changing the albedo that a big ‘ol hunk of space rock doesn’t?
And laying into (maybe 5% of) Planet Earth with multi-hundred horsepower tractors, ploughs and cultivators has precisely zero effect.
Before paddy fields, huge dams and the chopping of forests.
Selfishness and Magical Thinking are getting to be really rather scary……………
Don’t send your kids to Western University in London, Ont.
It will be a waste of time and money.
That is proof that the sun, not CO2 is causing the warming on earth.
Nope it’s the moon buggies doing the damage plus the homogenization brigade has now attacked the moon temperature records.
If you look really close during the hottest part of the “day” you will be able to find tiny swirly temperature controlling argon gas dust devils over the area of the instrumentation (and other human disturbed areas).
This dust devils, and similar phenomenon, are what controls the temperature.
So no, you are wrong, it’s not primarily the sun, it’s other stuffs.
Right or wrong, at least it’s coherent, unlike your ‘screed”.
The title of this silly article is, “Astronauts’ movement increased subsurface temperatures on the moon, study finds”.
It implies humans increased the temperature of the entire moon, not just the temperature under the tiny area upon which they walked, which is what the story was about.
It is a known albedo effect that could have been predicted and probably was, although I suppose it is good to have data on it as it might be useful in showing how strong albedo effect can be, such as the amount of warmth generated by ash pollution on ice flows and glaciers. If the moon’s temperature underneath the footsteps can raise its cold temperature up to 3.5 degrees C, it should be able to do the same to glaciers, which might outweigh supposed CO2 warming up north?
No matter what the subject is, the CAGWer birdbrains make themselves look dumber than a box of bent screws, every time they find something new to complain about.
Next thing you know, they’ll complain about the SOHO satellite setup orbiting the Sun, recording solar surface activity, because it is obviously causing a solar disturbance of unprecedented dimensions!
A few questions come to mind. Were the missing documents found in the same place that the Democrats “find” additional votes when they need them? Were they formatted with Microsoft Word, and printed on an inkjet? Were they on top of Barrack Obama’s original birth certificate?
“You can actually see the astronauts tracks, where they walked,” Kiefer said. “And we can see … where they scuffed dirt up — and what it leaves behind is a darker path.”
Really? So there is proof that the US actually put men on the moon;)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jB32lAjqUFo
Cheers
Roger
“the moon’s subsurface temperatures increased from 1.6 C to 3.5 C”
And how is a little warming on the moon a bad thing? Are they now going to claim that the reason we haven’t been able to detect life on the moon is because man-made climate change wiped it all out?
On the moon, one has regolith which is meters deep and the moon is covered a fine/dusty non compacted regolith which a few inches deep. The few inches of powdery regolith act as very good insulative material or better than fiberglass house insulation.
But if you step on it, then this would dramatically decrease it’s insulative properties.
So, I don’t think it has much to do with it having a darker color, rather the energy of sunlight can conduct heat better to the very compacted regolith beneath the powdery surface.
Or the surface is heated to 120 C, and a meter below the surface it can be -35 C.
On earth one could have concrete one meter deep, and surface in noon sun could be 70 C, and at a meter depth it could not be heated up much, but on Earth one only has a few hours near noon time in which sunlight can heat surface to around 70 C, but on Moon the day is 28 times longer than Earth day, so instead you have a few earth days of sunlight heating the surface to 120 C.
So if surface insulation is “removed” the sunlight can reach the highly compacted regolith which can then conduct heat as well as, or perhaps better, than as compared to concrete.
It’s just as well that there have been absolutely no meteorite strikes disturbing the surface of the moon over that last billion years or so otherwise who knows how high temperatures would be by now. If the dark footprints left by those naughty astronauts were to spend at least half of the time out of the Sun then they would cool more rapidly than the light surroundings and heating could start afresh the next day. Oh, forgive my oversight, the Moon does rotate doesn’t it? I guess also that using extremely powerful telescopes it can be seen that these footprints, unlike the surrounding surface, have not received a fine coating of ‘space dust’.
Was this article prepared by serious scientists because I find that very hard to believe.
It’s very hard not to say something pejorative about the article.
I mean dang.
When I was with the X PRIZE Foundation, running the flight operations for the 2006 X PRIZE Cup, we set out to build pads for the Lunar Lander Challenge that would look like the lunar surface. My first call was to Harrison Schmitt, the only scientist (geologist) to have flown to the moon, and second to the last person to leave the lunar surface. He gave us a tremendous amount of insight into the topography and, interestingly, the coloring of the lunar surface. What you see in photographs from the lunar surface, and even looking at the Moon through a telescope, is highly misleading. Standing on the Moon, you see a very dark charcoal grey surface. The white appearance of in photos, and what you see in direct observation, is due to the sheer brilliance of the incident sunlight. Schmitt did note that the plume from the LM descent engine did blow a lot of dust away, but didn’t penetrate very far. I’d be willing to bet that this is the source of most of the change in albedo around the landing site.
We hired a photo specialist who had color samples from all of the Apollo missions, and got a sample that looked representative. Amusingly, Brooke Owens and I went to a Home Depot in Las Cruces, NM to get paint for the pads, which I bought on my Home Depot credit card. The first batch they gave us was purple! We took it back, and gave us a replacement batch at no charge. It was very close to the sample we had obtained from our photo consultant. I think those pads are still there, at the Las Cruces International Airport. Anyone who wants to see what the surface of the moon actually looks like, go there.
Absolute Lunarcy!