Predicting Weather By The Moon - Xavier University Libraries

Weather By The Moon
above the ground. At these distances from the ground the
gravitational force of the earth is JUST equal to the centrifugal
force due to rotation. But from the measurement
of the pressure of the earth’s atmosphere, it was later deduced
that the atmosphere is only 17 and not 21,000 miles
high. More recent observations of the flight of meteorites
and of the polar auroras leads to conjecture that the atmosphere
reaches to a height of 130 miles (meteorites) or over
400 miles (polar auroras). Radio measurements yield about
200 miles for the upper layer. So computations based on
centrifugal forces versus astronomical observation differ
in the proportion of 17 and 21,000, which means they were
drastically out in their calculations.
Centrifugal force would only explain why the atmosphere
would be 5 times higher at the equator if the atmosphere
was thrown out to 21,000 miles. The fact that it is
only about 1% of that distance means that centrifugal force
is negligible.
Something else pulls the atmosphere out of shape, and
that something else piles up the high tide on both sides of
the earth at once. The more likely explanation is the pull of
the major luminaries.The Sun’s gravity produces parallel
tides that are about half as strong as the Moon’s and produces
its own pair of tidal bulges. They combine with the
lunar tides. At New and Full Moon, the Sun and Moon produce
tidal bulges that add together to produce extreme tides.
The actual reason for the two high seatides at once
on opposite sides of the earth was solved by Newton, but
no one understood him at the time. He attributed the effect
to classical astrological principles, in which planetary bod-
72