[This post IS NOT an April Fool’s joke as was the previous]
by Guillermo Gonzalez
Since the 19th century scientists have made meteorological measurements during solar eclipses (https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsta.2015.0217). A total solar eclipse affords us the opportunity to measure the response of the atmosphere to a known forcing that is very different from the day-to-day hemispheric heating from sunlight superimposed on gradual seasonal changes. I made my own very small contribution to this topic during the October 24, 1995 solar eclipse in India (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1997KodOB..13..151G/abstract).
One phenomenon that deserves further study is surface pressure fluctuations produced during a solar eclipse. These have been interpreted as gravity waves. They have been measured at several eclipses, though attempts are not always successful and quantitative results vary. For examples from the literature, see (https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/JD089iD03p04953?casa_token=-2NygK7STpQAAAAA:TlV1SXPo0Hlj5JdfNIbr7ZpFCgUL8xUpWCDzy0FuGraSbZPOKf2081Gy8bQ4xoSURvOxHbjEig30BcU , https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/atsc/70/3/jas-d-12-091.1.xml?tab_body=abstract-display , https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsta.2015.0217 , https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsta.2015.0222).
There are a couple reasons published studies of eclipse gravity pressure waves have often had inconclusive results. First, usually only a few instruments have been deployed along the eclipse track. Second, local meteorological changes unrelated to the eclipse (such as a passing front or atmospheric tides) have masked the eclipse waves.
This deficiency can be overcome by deploying many instruments along the path of totality. Sounds like an expensive experiment. It can be done very cheaply with modern technology. Many phones have built-in pressure sensors. They also have built-in GPS sensors, providing accurate locations and times. Phones have multiple additional sensors, making them handy portable scientific data loggers.
My purpose in writing this short post is to encourage as many people as possible to use their phones to gather data during the April 8 solar eclipse with multiple sensors.
The Sensor Logger phone app (https://github.com/tszheichoi/awesome-sensor-logger , https://www.tszheichoi.com/sensorlogger ) can record and store the readings from any combination of your phone’s sensors. I’ve setup a crowd sourced solar eclipse experiment with Sensor Logger. You can join the experiment one of two ways:
1 – Go to https://sensor.tszheichoi.com/app/study/eclipse1 with the browser on your phone and follow the directions to join the experiment. The ID of the experiment is ‘eclipse1’.
2 – Download the Sensor Logger phone app. Then, scan the following QR code with your phone camera and follow the directions:
On April 8 you should be within or near the path of totality to participate in the experiment, but measurements might still be useful even if you’re hundreds of miles from it. Place your phone face up somewhere outside where it will be undisturbed for at least several hours. It should be fully charged at the start of the experiment or plugged into a power source. Start recording data about 3 hours before the predicted time of mid-eclipse at your location and end your recording 4 or 5 hours later. NOTE: your location will be recorded along with light level, magnetometer, sound level, and barometric pressure. If you have the opportunity, also record data 24 hours before and/or after. Your data will be stored by the app on the cloud.
I will collect the data from the cloud and analyze it. Hopefully, I will publish the results in a scientific paper some months later.
Bio: Guillermo Gonzalez is an astronomer who lives in northern Alabama and works for Tellus1 Scientific, LLC. He obtained his Ph.D. in astronomy in 1993 at the University of Washington. He has published over 90 research papers in astronomy and astrophysics journals.
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“This post IS NOT an April Fool’s joke . . . .”
Yeah, fool me once . . . .”
Oh, you are such a sceptic.
Anyone would thing you were on the WUWT forum.. 😁
Curse, you are on the WUWT forum.
Scepticism approved. 👍
I watched a total eclipse a few decades ago, on a ferry crossing the English channel. The trip was specifically for the eclipse which my wife booked 18 months prior!!
It was amazing, as the terminator approached, there was a rushing noise, quite loud, above the ships noise of engines and fans. When the terminator arrived, it went rushing noise went silent. Very spooky really.
Perhaps these sounds rushing in are the atmospheric waves mentioned above?
A commendable effort by Guillermo Gonzalez. What about tracking temperature change too?
Unfortunately, the only temperature sensors in phones are for monitoring the battery temperature, as a safety measure. It would be a neat project to analyze public temperature datasets along the eclipse track. Wind speed and direction would be interesting too.
Would inside a car still be “outside”? That would be my only option.
Yes, as long as the windows are rolled down!
I’m guessing the concern for the windows being down is the barometric pressure? Would down just a little work for that or is that still isolating the interior too much?
Unfortunately, I’m not going to be in a place where I can leave it out easily reachable like that.
Yes, it’s for a proper reading of the barometric pressure. Probably half a inch on all the windows would be adequate to let the air flow in and out easily.
I applaud this whole effort, because I always wondered whether anyone had even looked at the weather effects. In fact, I think I asked that question in the comments on this blog at the time of the last total eclipse (and don’t believe I got any answers).
The effects cannot be negligible. A couple of days ago, I used the National Solar Observatory’s eclipse map (a wonderful resource: https://nso.edu/for-public/eclipse-map-2024/) to calculate the total amount of energy that wouldn’t reach the top of the Earth’s atmosphere. I took the disk of totality, which is about 105 nautical miles in diameter, and the timeline along the eclipse path, and integrated to arrive at a total energy of about 8.6E+18 J that would be removed from the Earth’s radiation budget for the day. That’s the equivalent of about 300 Hiroshima bombs, to invoke alarmist imagery.
At any instant, the equivalent of 0.08 W/m^2 is removed from the entire globe’s solar input. Looked at as taking the total insolation as illuminating whole surface at once (341 W/m^2), a concept I hate, it represents a 3.6% change in “forcing”. That’s not huge globally, but the phenomenon is not global – it’s quite local.
Anyway, sign me up. And thanks for opening my eyes to yet another capability of the iPhone!
Yes, I applaud the whole effort too, but you also get a round of applause for:
That’s the equivalent of about 300 Hiroshima bombs
I may re-purpose my old phone for this experiment.