Climate Monitoring Station Proposed on the Moon

CryogenicKeen writes with the news that a University of Michigan study indicates the perfect place to monitor Earth's climate system would be the surface of the moon. The side facing us is a perfect location to monitor temperatures and weather patterns here on our planet, and a UM paper proposes an international effort to deploy monitoring stations on Earth's natural satellite. "On the near side of the airless moon, where Apollo 15 landed, surface temperature is controlled by solar radiation during daytime and energy radiated from Earth at night. Huang showed that due to an amplifying effect, even weak radiation from Earth produces measurable temperature changes in the regolith. Further, his revisit of the data revealed distinctly different characteristics in daytime and nighttime lunar surface temperature variations. This allowed him to uncover a lunar night-time warming trend from mid-1972 to late 1975, which was consistent with a global dimming of Earth that occurred over the same period and was due to a general decrease of sunlight over land surfaces."

Why the moon?

[Smight]

Is the moon the closest to earth you can get before your science is distorted by politics?

We already know the climate

[Anonymous Coward]

of the moon....

Re:expensive?

[Guppy06]

"We could, like sped the money on CO2 reductions or developing green technology."

Do your part to reduce CO2 by turning off your computer.

Fair warning

[Jhan]

If anyone uses the phrase "Dark Side of the Moon", or "Light Side of the moon" I will punch them in the face. If they defend that by saying it's a "figure of speech", I'll rip their head of. Just so you know.

Re:expensive?

[dattaway]

We could use the same Hollywood movie set that created the Apollo Moon Landings to put a weather station there too. Shouldn't cost more than the typical movie these days. They could even charge tickets for the weather.

Re:Fair warning

[mobby_6kl]

I thought "Dark Side Of The Moon" was a pretty good album, and I'm not that big of a fan.

What will the phone number be?

[zamboni1138]

Like any other good remote automated weather station (think AWOS), there should be a phone number to dial into, so that pilots could check the local weather, as well as a VHF station for in-flight use. I can imagine the data now:

000:00:00:00 Winds: Calm, Altimeter: 00.00, Humidity: 0, Visibility: > 20 miles, Celling: > two five thousand feet
000:01:00:00 Winds: Calm, Altimeter: 00.00, Humidity: 0, Visibility: > 20 miles, Celling: > two five thousand feet
000:02:00:00 Winds: Calm, Altimeter: 00.00, Humidity: 0, Visibility: > 20 miles, Celling: > two five thousand feet
000:03:00:00 Winds: Calm, Altimeter: 00.00, Humidity: 0, Visibility: > 20 miles, Celling: > two five thousand feet
000:04:00:00 Winds: Calm, Altimeter: 00.00, Humidity: 0, Visibility: > 20 miles, Celling: > two five thousand feet, caution extreme radiation warning

Re:expensive?

[__aaclcg7560]

Wrong answer. This is Slashdot. The Anonymous Cowards should do their part to reduce CO2 by not breathing. A substantial side benefit is the reduction of unwanted basement dwelling DNA from the gene pool. This would help both the climate and the human race. :P

Re:expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's send Al Gore to the Moon so that he can monitor the Earth's climate.

Re:expensive?

[0xdeadbeef]

Let's send Al Gore to the Moon so that he can monitor the Earth's climate.

It is pre-ordained, he is to be First Emperor of the Moon.

"For I have ridden the MIGHTY MOON WORM!"

Re:The Moon is a perfect place...

[SEMW]

The overwhelming arrogance of some people to believe that mere humans and our assorted activities have a major impact...

You're right! For too long humanity has been making decisions on the basis of nothing more than "facts", "data", and "experimental evidence". No longer! We shall move over to a system of making decisions on how arrogant it is to believe things.

For example, atoms are the fundamental building blocks of matter; it is extraordinarily arrogant of humanity to think that we can split them. Simple logical thus shows that atom bombs are obviously myths, and it clearly follows that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not destroyed by them. As a "nuclear bomb sceptic", I have previously been assaulted by someone who claimed to be a family member of someone who was killed by a nuclear bomb! I was merely attempting to calmly and patiently explain how bombs were a liberal consipiracy propogated by the all-controlling American liberal media, but alas -- they did not want to listen to the Truth.

They even offered to take me over to Japan to show me the 'destruction' -- when I refused on the grounds that the voyage would take several months by steamship, they preposterously claimed that mankind could fly through the air? How arrogant is that, to think that mankind should have the ability to conquer the sky, which clearly belongs to God; and if He had meant us to fly, He would have given us wings!

Ah, the arrogance of Humanity to believe such things.

Re:expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

I forgot to add, you were right about my head being fat. :P