9/22/2005: Red flash moon

[xoxoxoBruce]

When America used to make things and the coal fired smokestacks were belching great plumes of soot, the weather was definitely cooler on the ground. The soot may have been absorbing the heat from the sun and dissipating it around the world for a net increase in total heat, but locally it was cooler.

[tw]

Originally Posted by mitheral

I believe tw is talking about Global Dimming which is the observed fact that the brightness of the sun at ground level declined about 5% between the 1950 and 1990. This dimming it's postulated was caused by particulate pollution which has been reduced due to measures like the Clean Air Act in the USA.

Global warning was recently connected with activity of man. That part is no longer disputable. However details of the mechanism(s) involved are still being learned. Another piece of the puzzle has been identified: From BBC News of 12 Nov 2005:

Water builds the heat in Europe
The scientists say that rising temperatures caused by greenhouse gases are increasing humidity, which in turn amplifies the temperature rise.

This is potentially a positive feedback mechanism which could increase the impact of greenhouse gases such as CO2. ...

"We observed that between 1995 and 2002, the amount of longwave radiation coming downwards to the Earth in Europe increased significantly, whereas solar radiation did not," said study leader Rolf Philipona, from the World Radiation Center in Davos, Switzerland.

Longwave radiation comes from molecules of gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, and water vapour which have absorbed solar radiation after it has hit the Earth's surface and been reflected back up through the atmosphere.

"We wondered if this effect was simply because of a temperature increase at the surface - you would just get more radiation going up, and so more coming back down," Dr Philipona told the BBC News website.

[Trilby]

You guys are all pretty smart. I never, never, never think about this stuff (I know--leaving myself wide open for an insult-fest) but, seriously, I never do. Why do you all worry about this? Just enjoy the red moon. Maybe it's a sign of the endtimes or something.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Brianna

You guys are all pretty smart. I never, never, never think about this stuff

What, goatse and tubgirl?

[mitheral]

Originally Posted by Brianna

You guys are all pretty smart. I never, never, never think about this stuff (I know--leaving myself wide open for an insult-fest) but, seriously, I never do. Why do you all worry about this? Just enjoy the red moon. Maybe it's a sign of the endtimes or something.

A buddy of mine and I are sitting around after a game one early morning and the topic came around to how the full moon looked especially bright that night:

Mitheral: Man the moon sure is bright tonight.
Friend of Mitheral: Did you know that the moon is 1 millionth the brightness of the sun?
M: Say what?
FoM: Ya, I read that a clear sky full moon reflects about 1/1,000,000 of the suns light to the surface of the earth.
M: Not that I don't believe you, what with you being the rocket scientist and all<1>, but let's take Bill Nye's advice to heart<2> and give this a test.

So the next night we head out to a sufficiently dark place away from the light pollution of town with 35mm gear and a stopwatch. A few quick calculations of F-stops and reciprocity failure time fudges and we start taking _long_ exposures of the surrounding scenery.

Five days later (we're not working for the government here so we didn't see any need to pay for 1hr processing) we had a half dozen pictures of what appeared at first glance to be fairly normal looking landscapes.

Until you noticed that the grass was all fuzzy soft looking like a new piece of fleece but fence posts and buildings were razor sharp. There wasn't even much of a colour cast as the moon is a pretty near perfect grey card. The ever so slightly off colours were probably a result of the 4+ minute exposure times. Kind of a '70s techincolour effect.

So yes the light reflected by the moon to earth is about 1 millionth the brightness of the sun.

<1> Sort of, though more a rocket scientist in training, he was an aerospace engineering student.

<2> One test is worth a thousand expert opinions.

[Billy Budapest]

Maybe that red phenomenon is the spaceship that the Scientologists say is waiting on the other side of the moon to take us all away to Paradise?

[lumberjim]

ok, who let the Canadian in?!