Earth rings and weather

Is the Earth a ringed planet?

G. Jones was the first to suggest the Earth might have a ring of its own (1856), and J.A. O'Keefe was the first to suggest that an Earth ring system could influence weather (1980).  

Neither got much traction, but perhaps both were right.  A fading ring system would account for global warming of the 20th century such as it was, and for its many statistical peculiarities - more warming in winters than summers, more at high latitudes than near the equator, more warming of daily temperature minima than maxima, and so on.  

And conversely, if the ring explanation is the right one, then our weather will never be well predicted far in advance unless we learn about the ring system.   The cyclic effects of a ring system might be noticed, but because our ring system - if we have one - must be unstable, the ring system would be fragile and change quickly, and so the magnitude of the cycles it drives would vary quickly also.   That would be absolutely confusing if the underlying mechanism is not understood.  

So it may be useful to see whether this possible driver exists or not.  A right diagnosis of the drivers of our ever-changing climate is necessary if we are to manage it.  

To explore the notion that a ring system is helping drive our climate, the purpose of this website is to present a set of weather predictions for events that reasonably correspond to the expected effects of a simple ring system, and are not otherwise specifically expected, and to compare those predictions to the weather that actually occurs.  

The basis of the predictions is the notion that the rings shadow the earth, and that knowing the position of the ring shadows is a key to predicting the position of some big fronts.  That's the idea.   

The below items are those in the poster presentation made at the American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting in January 2012.   It being now February of 2013, I am setting out now to verify or otherwise.

APRIL-MAY:  CHILLY AND STORMY IN CANADA AND US (1)  

APRIL-MAY:  DRY IN C EUROPE, S. E. EUROPE, WEST US, NORTH AND WEST CHINA, KOREAS (2)

APRIL-MAY:  RAIN IN THE MAGHREB, NORTHERN IRAN, TURKEY’S BLACK SEA COAST (3)   

MAY 24-25:  RAIN IN TEXAS (gather it up), COLD IN S. FLORIDA, CENTRAL MEXICO,   CENTRAL SAUDI ARABIA, NORTH/CENTRAL INDIA (4)

MAY 25: RAIN BEGINS IN PAKISTAN (5)

MAY 26 :  RAIN BEGINS OMAN, YEMEN, DJIBOUTI, TO CONTINUE A WEEK OR SO (6) 

MAY 24-25: RAIN BEGINS IN JAPAN, KOREAS, SOUTHERN CHINA, TAIWAN, HAINAN, BURMA,

THEN FROM MAY 29 PHILIPPINES THEN INDOCHINA (7) -   

MAY 27-29: RAIN IN BANGLADESH AND E INDIA (8)

MAY 28: RAIN IN DAKAR, THEN COASTAL GUINEA-BISSAU, GUINEA, SIERRA LEONE, LIBERIA, COTE D’IVOIRE, GHANA, TOGO, BENIN, NIGERIA (9)

JUNE 2:  RAIN IN MOGADISHU (10) -

JUNE 2: RAIN IN CARIBBEAN, MEXICO FROM GUADALAJARA TO SOUTH, AND IN CENTRAL AMERICA (11)   

OCT-NOV:  CHILLY AND STORMY IN SOUTH HEM. (12)

NOV 10-17: FREAKY STORMS IN SOUTH HEM. (13)

NOV 15-17:  CHILL IN PARAGUAY AND NEIGHBORS (14)

NOV 17 FF: RAIN IN AUSTRALIA, NZ, NEIGHBORS (15)

NOV 27: STORMS AIMING AT PHILIPPINES, MALAYSIA, PNG, BRAZIL, C AMERICA (16)

NOV 25-DEC 7:  QATAR – BANDS OF COOL AND RAIN (17)

POSSIBLE NOVEMBER HURRICANE N ATLANTIC (18)

ENSO MAX IN MAR-APRIL 2015 (STRONG EL NINO) (19)

ENSO MIN IN APRIL 2024 (STRONG LA NINA) (20)

Postscript:  Why not just look for observational evidence of Earth rings?  If they are climate-important, they must be visible (this useful remark was made by Matthew something or other whom I met at AGU in January 2011) and if visible, just looking for them would do, no?

....Logical, but, no.  Seeking direct observational evidence won't work because what you would expect to see, we definitely do see, and already have good explanations for.  That's why looking for direct evidence is useless.  Thus:

• Sunlight reflected from an equatorial ring would illuminate a sector of the night sky low on the southern horizon (at northern mid-latitudes).  Against this illuminated patch, Earth's shadow would appear on the left, like the hour hand of a clock against the southern sky, rotating upward just like that until at midnight it would be vertical as though pointing to "12", after which it would rotate further until it slipped out of sight at sunrise. This whole show, if it were observed, would likely be attributed to light pollution, since after all light pollution could well behave the same way:  a hazy lit patch on the southern horizon, dimming a few hours before midnight and then brightening again.  I well remember the first time I saw this light, and the astronomer who thought that light was intriguing and beautiful.)   That the Earth's shadow would look like the hour hand of a clock and would have exactly the same meaning makes one wonder whether the design of clock faces somehow draws on memory of a sight that very long ago would have been nightly familiar - a memory maybe intermediated by sundial design.   Else it is a striking coincidence. 

• Reflected sunlight from a ring in the plane of the lunar orbit would illuminate an arc with a and bright spot rising each night to the zenith and then setting.  One could look for that but one would learn right away that this is just where the the zodiacal light and gegenschein are already known.   In fact, the first systematic observer of the zodiacal light (Jones, mentioned above) worked out that this illumination could be interpreted as light reflected from an Earth ring.  But in the intervening years, when that orientation seemed absurd, people produced different explanations of that light.  Still, these alternatives are not fully satisfactory -- the gegenschein is not exactly on the ecliptic, for example.

In sum, what must be observed for a ring to exist, is observed, but the observations do not prove the ring exists because they can be explained in other ways.

Contact:  lucy@naturesverdict.net