Variations of the Earth's albedo deduced from the ashen light of the Moon

✍ Scribed by Heinz Hilbrecht; Gerd Küveler

• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Year: 1985
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 330 KB
• Volume: 32
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1573-0794
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00054334

✦ Synopsis

An analysis of 1210 visual brightness estimations of the Moon's ashen light is presented, performed by a working group of amateur astronomers from June 1972 to December 1973. In the Moon phase interval 0.1 < Tb < 0.7 the brightness expressed in a semi-empirical scale, S,, is found to be linearly related to the phase. Monthly deviations from the mean brightness show well defined winter maxima (January) and summer minima (July). Within the referenced period the brightness of the ashen light tends to increase, whereas the solar magnetic activity decreased. In addition, minor correlations and, respectively, anti-correlations are found at stratospheric temperature and, respectively density. On account of the nature of the ashen light its variations are regarded as fluctuations of the Earth's albedo.