The Moon makes us mad... and it can warm us up as well
The Moon shapes the world around us in mysterious ways. It shifts the tides as it waxes and wanes and, when full, it can supposedly drive us to folly.
“She comes more near the Earth than she was wont. And makes men mad,” wrote Shakespeare in Othello.
There is, unsurprisingly, plenty of weather lore associated with the Moon, although how much can actually be relied on is another matter altogether.
Farmers once spoke of a “dripping moon”, for example, where a crescent Moon indicates rainfall depending on whether it points up or down.
Another of the old sayings is “a ring around the sun or moon, means rain or snow is coming soon”. Hedges its bets, really, that one.
There is much we don’t know about the Moon’s impact on the weather and climate but glimmers of knowledge are appearing. In the Sixties, researchers discovered a full and new Moon can have a small influence on rainfall. And, this week, a study paper has suggested lunar cycles can influence temperature here on Earth.
In this modelling study, Prof Ed Hawkins of the University of Reading examined the predictable 18.6 year cycle of the Moon and discovered that each one can heat or cool the globe by around 0.04C.
While such a small amount may not be noticed by any of us, it is enough to influence climate change modelling and could be an explanation for the apparent slowdown in global warming in the 2000s.
Despite this brief hiatus, in 2014 there was a dramatic jump in surface temperatures with the following five years each setting their own record as the warmest ever witnessed.
According to Prof Hawkins’s study, the next lunar cycle could lead to the opposite impact in the decade that follows, fractionally increasing warming in the 2030s.
Definitely not what we need right now. Perhaps life was simpler when it just turned us all into lunatics.