Posted on 04/01/2024 6:23:53 PM PDT by PROCON
There is a lot of concern about cloudiness obscuring the sun during next Monday's total eclipse.
Interestingly it turns out that such eclipse-viewing problems are increasing as the earth warms up due to increasing levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
A recent study in the Journal of Climate Statistics by Professor Wade Rocston of the University of Western East New Brunswick documents a significant (23%) increasing trend in cloud-obscured solar eclipses.
The origin of the increasing cloud cover is clear according the Professor Rocston. Increasing CO2 leads to global warming. Such warming results in more evaporation and the moisture content of the air increases with temperature (see below). This leads to more clouds and thus greater obscuration of solar eclipses.
The moisture content of air increases with temperature, which leads to more clouds.
This ground-breaking study found increased springtime clouds over Texas and the rest of the eclipse path (see below, cross-hatched shading indicates increasing clouds):
According to the ICCC, the International Committee on Climate Change, which includes leading climate scientists from around the world, solar eclipses have become 24% less visible due to climate change-related cloudiness increases. Their analysis suggests that if CO2 concentrations remain at their current level, the associated warming and increased cloudiness will result in nearly 46% of total eclipse events being obscured by clouds by the end of the century.
The inability to see total eclipses is one of the lesser-known impacts of global warming, but it is a real loss for astronomers and the rest of us. I look forward to a detailed discussion of this unfortunate situation in a future article by the Seattle Times ClimateLab reporters.
Finally, happy April 1.
...which in turn increases the Earth's albedo - meaning that more light is reflected back into Space, causing the Earth to cool.
Regards,
Good link. I made something similar to that when I was a kid but this one is better.
When I was 10, Dad bought a telescope that had a funnel-shape piece that fit on the eyepiece. It had white paper across the top and when you aimed the telescope at the sun, you could see it on that paper. What was really cool was you could see the sunspots as well. It was an inexpensive telescope but it was pretty good.
Eclipse glasses are in a desk drawer, ready to be whipped out IF we get lucky enough to have clear sky for a while next week. Not holding my breath but not giving up hope either. Once in a blue moon, good luck comes my way. LOL
You didn’t see the last sentence of the article?
Cliff Mass is often featured at WUWT. Very informative guy.
Using one side of a pair of binoculars held over a shoulder to project the sun onto a white surface set up to be perpendicular to the sunlight and in your shadow works better yet.
About 5 minutes after I submitted that comment a little cartoon asterisk appeared above my head, I said “Wait...”, and went back and looked.
I cheerfully admit to making a fool of myself :)
I take some solace in the fact that I’m post-major surgery and loopy, but still: ya take a risk if you hydrocodone and FR lol...
More clouds means more sunlight and heat reflected back into space.🤔
👍🏻👍🏻
👍🏻👍🏻
Hope your recovery goes well!
That’s a nifty idea. Hubby had a couple pairs of binoculars and now that I think about it, I have a monocular that was Dad’s. That will be easier to use.
Still going to lay out a sheet under the Bradford pear tree for a pic or two of the shadow crescents. Pretty cool to see clusters of them in the leaf shadows.
Heh! I beat ever’one to da store and loaded up before they could even think aboudit.
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