Dear Tom,
What would happen to our weather if we didn’t have a moon?
— Robert Lamm
Dear Robert,
In the short term, nothing at all. The moon’s contribution to an atmospheric tide (and ocean tides, as well) would cease, but without weather consequences. Through the millenniums, though, the moon has exerted a huge stabilizing influence on the Earth’s climate. The Earth’s axial spin (a spin that produces our 24-hour day) tilts at an angle of about 66.5 degrees from the plane of our orbit around the sun. That tilt, stabilized by the moon, causes the yearly cycle of seasons. In the moon’s absence, the Earth would behave almost like an unbalanced spinning top, with its axial tilt rolling erratically between 0 and 90 degrees over thousands of years. The result: climatic chaos with much larger temperature swings between the warm and cold seasons.
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Write to: ASK TOM WHY, 2501 Bradley Pl., Chicago, IL 60618 or: asktomwhy@wgntv.com
Weather Report is prepared by the WGN-TV Weather Center, where Tom Skilling is chief meteorologist. His forecasts can be seen Monday through Friday on WGN News at noon, 5:55 p.m. and 9 p.m.
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