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Predicting Weather By The Moon - Xavier University Libraries

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<strong>Weather</strong> <strong>By</strong> <strong>The</strong> <strong>Moon</strong><br />

the pattern. It’s almost as if it is on an expanding and contracting<br />

screw-thread.<br />

It is this variation in the wobble that produces the socalled<br />

Greenhouse Effect, Southern Oscillation, Humboldt<br />

Current Effect, Global Warming, El Nino, and La Nina patterns.<br />

<strong>The</strong> scientific world is currently in a tizz over these<br />

words and has been since 1987. But since 1863, the planet’s<br />

temperature has risen by only 0.1°C, and so far the<br />

effects have not been too catastrophic.<br />

No, the earth is not anywhere yet heating up to furnace<br />

point, the poles aren’t melting, we won’t suffocate to<br />

death because of aerosols killing all the oxygen, and nor<br />

are motorcars killing the planet. We should curb pollution<br />

that messes up our immediate environment, but there is<br />

nothing to panic over. When one realises what the <strong>Moon</strong> is<br />

doing, it is clear that its cycles are predictable. It has been<br />

moving from one end of its cycle to the other for thousands<br />

of years; and the weather has followed suit.<br />

MAXIMUM DECLINATION<br />

Let us recall how a spinning and wobbling flat dinner<br />

plate might slowly rise up again into a bigger wobble, only<br />

to settle back down a bit and repeat the process. Imagine<br />

that on the edge of such a spinning plane sits the <strong>Moon</strong>.<br />

That is the picture for each month, one spin every 27 and a<br />

half days. For each monthly declination, we pictured the<br />

<strong>Moon</strong> starting on AB as a reference point and going around<br />

while dipping below and then around further and coming<br />

back up to the beginning again. It does this month in and<br />

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