Environmental News

Moon Forces Change The Amount Of Rain That Falls

Moon Over Golden Gate Bridge
Image via Pixabay

The amount of rain that falls from the skies is, according to new research out of the University of Washington, connected to the moon.

According to the study, which is to be published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, lunar forces have a very slight affect on the amount of rain that falls. The moon, when it’s high in the sky, creates bulges in the earth’s atmosphere that result in imperceptible changes in rainfall.

The discovery — which may be the first study to “convincingly connect the tidal force of the moon with rainfall,” according to corresponding study author Tsubasa Kohyama — comes as a result of a slight oscillation in air pressure noticed by Kohyama while he was looking into atmospheric waves.

As far as I know, this is the first study to convincingly connect the tidal force of the moon with rainfall

After noticing the changes in air pressure, Kohyama, a doctoral student in atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington, and study co-author John Wallace spent a couple of years researching the phenomenon and found that the moon’s gravitational pull causes less rain to fall.

Kohyama was quoted by Phys.org as having explained that the relative humidity’s impact on rain comes as the result of lower humidity, which “is less favorable for precipitation.”

According to Kohyama and Wallace, who is a professor of atmospheric sciences at UW, the moon’s power over the amount of rain that falls only accounts for about 1 percent of the total variation seen in the amount of rain that falls and that its impact is not only unnoticeable to humans, but too small to have an impact on other aspects of the weather.

In other lunar coverage here at Immortal News, the Russian and European space agencies announced late last year their intention to join forces in a mission to colonize the moon.

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