THE MOON AND THE WEATHER.

Dunstan Times, Issue 2481, 17 May 1909, Page 3

THE MOON AND THE WEATHER.

* The popular fallacy that the moon exerts in important influence on the weather is by no means confined to sailors. It is a very aommon remark among weather-wise people, •• There is a new moon to-morrow, we’ll be having a change of weather." ■ Another vill look up to that "orbed maiden, with white fire .laden, whom mortals call the moon," and with a shake of the head remark sententiously, “She’s on her back." All this is sheercredulity.. Heat must accompany light, but the amount of heat the earth receives from the reflected light of the moon is quite imperceptible on the surface of the earth, and its influence on our climate nil. Our atmosphere absorbs four-fifths of the heat which enters it, and Professor Piazzi Smyth thought that, although at the surface of the earth the hpat of the moon could not be detected, it might be apparent at a great altitude above the earth, where less heat would have been absorbed, Accordingly, in 1556, he tried the effect of the moon upon a thermopile at an elevation of 10,000 feet on the Peak of Teneriffe. There was no doubt now that heat accompanies moonlight, and Professor Smyth estimated the heat as equal to that emitted by the hand at a distance of three feet. Lord Rosse also made experiments, and concluded that the heating effect of the moon upon the earth is one eighty thousandth that of the sun. Professor Ball says;— •* There is one widely credited myth about the moon which must be regarded as devoid of real foundation. The idea that the moon and the weather are connected has no doubt been entertained by high authority,, but careful comparison has shown that there is no connection between the two." Another authority says;—" As regards the weather, it really seems absurd to speak of any connection between its changes and those of the moon’s phase. For the weather (even in New Zealand) is almost always changing; and the moon’s phase does not change by jumps four times in a month, from new to half-full, from halffull to full, and so on, but is always and continually changing." In order to test the real value of the lunar changes on the weather, the Greenwich observations for fifty years were carefully examined, and compared with prognostications founded on the moon’s changes, and U was found that the number of instances in which the weather was in accordance with such prognostications was fewer than thosa In which it was not. Although the supposed influence of the moon upon the weather is an absolute delusion, the influence of moonlight on vegetation, though feeble compared pflfo ifrat of tbp saa. is well established^' *