Dear Tom,
On a clear night with a full moon, does the earth receive a measurable amount of radiated heat from the moon?
Jack Martin, Somonauk, Il
Dear Jack,
Adler Planetarium astronomer Larry Ciupik says NO. Heat is difficult enough to transmit through air when the sun is involvedit is all but impossible to relay heat through moonlight. The moon does reflect visible light but the moon’s disc is just so smallit simply doesn’t possess the surface area needed to transmit substantial energy, like heat.
To illustrate this, Ciupik refers to the reflective surfaces used by some to sun themselves. If this surface was small in size, like the moon’s disc in the sky on a full moon night, the reflector would transmit so little energy we wouldn’t notice any reflected heat. Likewise, the moon is small and incapable of relaying heat.
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Tom Skilling is chief meteorologist at WGN-TV. His weather forecasts can be seen Monday through Friday on WGN News at noon and 9 p.m.
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