[FPSPACE] Russian study says cloud amounts affected by lunar phases

[LARRY KLAES]

Lunar semimonthly signal in cloud amount

 

Authors: Nikolay Pertsev (1), Peter Dalin (2,3) ((1)A. M. Obukhov Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia, (2) Swedish Institute of Space Physics, Kiruna, Sweden, (3) Space Research Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia)

 

(Submitted on 21 Jul 2009)

 

Abstract: Based on NASA satellite infrared and visible range measurements, cloud amount ISCCP_D1 summer nighttime data, representing the tropospheric cloud activity at Central Russia are examined over 1994-2007, and the lunar signal in the cloud amount was extracted. 

 

The ISCCP_D1 database was used to confirm previous results of Pertsev, Dalin and Romejko (2007) on the large importance of lunar declination effect compared to the lunar phase effect. Since this database provides much more information than it was used in that previous investigation, it has become possible to separate the lunar phase effect and the lunar declination effect in cloudiness. 

 

The relative cloud amount tends to grow with a change of lunar phase from a quadrature to the New Moon or Full Moon and with increasing of the lunar declination by absolute value. The both effects are statistically significant, the second one is a little stronger. 

 

Comments: 10 pages, 2 figures (included in the text) 

 

Subjects: Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics (physics.ao-ph); Geophysics (physics.geo-ph) 

 

Report number: IFARAN-09-07 

 

Cite as: arXiv:0907.3643v1 [physics.ao-ph] 

 

Submission history

 

From: Nikolay Pertsev [view email] 

 

[v1] Tue, 21 Jul 2009 16:18:09 GMT (556kb,D)

 

http://arxiv.org/abs/0907.3643

 

 
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