Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Climate Monitoring Station Proposed on the Moon

Posted by Zonk on from the to-the-moon-data dept.

CryogenicKeen writes with the news that a University of Michigan study indicates the perfect place to monitor Earth's climate system would be the surface of the moon. The side facing us is a perfect location to monitor temperatures and weather patterns here on our planet, and a UM paper proposes an international effort to deploy monitoring stations on Earth's natural satellite. "On the near side of the airless moon, where Apollo 15 landed, surface temperature is controlled by solar radiation during daytime and energy radiated from Earth at night. Huang showed that due to an amplifying effect, even weak radiation from Earth produces measurable temperature changes in the regolith. Further, his revisit of the data revealed distinctly different characteristics in daytime and nighttime lunar surface temperature variations. This allowed him to uncover a lunar night-time warming trend from mid-1972 to late 1975, which was consistent with a global dimming of Earth that occurred over the same period and was due to a general decrease of sunlight over land surfaces."

3 of 106 comments (clear)

  1. Why the moon? by Smight · · Score: 5, Funny

    Is the moon the closest to earth you can get before your science is distorted by politics?

    --
    IOU one (1) signature
  2. Re:expensive? by Guppy06 · · Score: 5, Funny

    "We could, like sped the money on CO2 reductions or developing green technology."

    Do your part to reduce CO2 by turning off your computer.

  3. What will the phone number be? by zamboni1138 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Like any other good remote automated weather station (think AWOS), there should be a phone number to dial into, so that pilots could check the local weather, as well as a VHF station for in-flight use. I can imagine the data now:

    000:00:00:00 Winds: Calm, Altimeter: 00.00, Humidity: 0, Visibility: > 20 miles, Celling: > two five thousand feet
    000:01:00:00 Winds: Calm, Altimeter: 00.00, Humidity: 0, Visibility: > 20 miles, Celling: > two five thousand feet
    000:02:00:00 Winds: Calm, Altimeter: 00.00, Humidity: 0, Visibility: > 20 miles, Celling: > two five thousand feet
    000:03:00:00 Winds: Calm, Altimeter: 00.00, Humidity: 0, Visibility: > 20 miles, Celling: > two five thousand feet
    000:04:00:00 Winds: Calm, Altimeter: 00.00, Humidity: 0, Visibility: > 20 miles, Celling: > two five thousand feet, caution extreme radiation warning