Planetary Consultation
Winston Ford
A group of extraterrestrials gazes back at us. Experts on planetary issues, they have traveled a distance for this meeting, and they have just stumped us with a question: what do we call the study of sunlight? A bit flustered and with forced calmness we talk amongst ourselves, confident that we have a word for the study of sunlight. In English we can not find it. We turn to the Swiss, perhaps there is a word in German or French. But no, they can not find a word. Photology, lumenology, these aren’t words.. we stumble. We ask the Russians. We ask the Chinese, surely they have it in Mandarin or Cantonese or one of their many languages, but no.
It appears we have no word for the study of sunlight. We don’t even have a word for the study of the sun. Heliophysics seems to be, as of only quite recently, as close as we get. Someone quietly whispers, “heliology.” It is an arcane word, found only a few times in old texts. It fits the bill, having derived from Greek much in the same way as hydrology.
One of the expert beings says they have just come across some old records. Apparently they have been to our planet before. They are sifting through the notes.“Re,” one of them says. “Ra,” says another. “Ramses,”
“Oh yes,” we recognize the names. “The Egyptians. But they didn’t study the sun. They worshipped it- believed it was a god named Ra.”
“What is the difference?” the expert beings looked perplexed.
“It has to do with truth and whether we determine it by faith or proof,” we reply. Worshipping a god is a religion. In religion, truth is based on faith, on belief. Studying a celestial body is a science. In science, truth is based on proof, on fact.”
“So what science can not prove, does not exist.”
“Exactly,” we reply.
“Do your scientists have proof of love?” they ask us.
We turn to each other, surely there has been a study.
“Perhaps you might just agree on a word temporarily,” they suggest, “so that we may continue. We need to keep moving. It’s about to get dark, and that should be proof enough.” They chuckle.
Indeed the sun is nearly setting. How could this possibly be true that we have no word for the study of the sun? Dumbfounded, we agree to use heliology for the time being and inform the expert beings of our tentative choice.
“Oh yes, like Helios,” they affirm. “How about Apollogy? Sorry,” they smile.
“Heh,” we get it. Helios is the Titan god of sun.. Apollo is the younger Olympian god of sun light.
“Ra, Inti, Kinich Ahau, Huitzilopochtli” the expert beings somehow pronounce these words. “Your people have had many names for the sun.”We explain that those are actually gods from civilizations that no longer exist.
“But the people do, and we have seen their structures. They are still standing. Some of them align at with the sun. Do your structures align with the sun?” They ask us.
We look at each other and someone says, “Yes there is a building at MIT. It has a hallway which aligns with the sun a couple times of year, thought not at a solstice or equinox.”
At the spring and fall equinoxes, the shadow body of kulkulkan or quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent, takes 5 hours to rise up and meet the stone head. It remains for 45 minutes, and then disappears to return exactly a half year later.
“One building?” they ask. “What about a celebration when the sun is the highest, may be a dance?”
Perhaps a tad on the defensive, we explain that our people are more industrial than agricultural and not concerned with the sun’s position in the sky. Our time is spent developing amazing things, we insist, and offer one of our phones to the beings. “We are making advances in devices like these and making them available to all of our people.” They cup the phone as if it were a pebble.
“What makes it work?” they ask.
“Electricity,” we reply proudly.
“From where?” they ask.
“From a power plant.. that burns gas or coal. A battery in the phone stores the power,” we explain.
“Examples of what you might now call, the heliologic cycle.” they say.
“Well,” we reply, “not really. But we do have solar power. That would be an example of the heliologic cycle.”
“Solar power?” they ask. “Is there any other kind?”
Photo Credits:
“A Cheyenne warrior of the future”, 1907. Richard Throssel
“Sun Dancer Pledgers–Cheyenne”, 1910. Edward Curtis
“Chichen Itza Equinox”, 2009. ATSZ56
This piece is part 2 of a series on how to ride climate change.
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As one of the aliens holds the phone, we pull up a weather app called Dark Sky. A circle appears on the screen showing shapes in many shades of red. We swipe the circle and it rotates on axis, demonstrating to the aliens that it is a sphere, a model of our planet. These shapes, we explain are a measure of temperature, dark red being the hottest. Touch play and the shapes of red shades morph, simulating the temperature changes throughout the day, around the world.
The aliens nod amongst themselves, impressed. We swipe to the next screen and explain that we measure and express our weather in many ways. We have subjective terms to describe weather like hot, cold, cloudy, windy, sunny, rainy. We also have objective scales for precise measurements.
Our metric for temperature is measured in degrees on three scales, Fahrenheit, Celsius, or Kelvin. We measure wind speed and relative humidity. In cold weather, we can use these three metrics to determine wind chill and show what the temperature feels like, in addition to what it actually is. So we explain that on a winter day, we might say it’s 28 degrees F but feels like 26. Or on summer day, we might say the high is 95 degrees F, but because the humidity is at 85%, it feels even hotter.
To express wind speed we use two systems, metric or imperial and our universal system of measurement for time. So a windy day might mean wind speeds of 18 miles per hour. Or we might use yet another unit of measurement that combines distance and time, the knot, and say the wind is blowing at 20 knots.
For rainfall we measure and express in the metric and imperial system to describe the rainfall in centimeters or inches. So for instance when we say that we had a “heavy rainfall” the word “heavy” is subjective. But when we say we had 6 inches of rain, it’s objective. It means that 6 inches of rain landed over the last 24 hours. With this metric and a catchment area, we can determine the volume of water.
The aliens ask us, “So with regard to these metrics that you use to describe weather, are these highly technical terms the understanding of which is limited to academics and specialists or is the understanding of these metrics widespread amongst your people, regardless of education?”
“Well,” we explain, “depending on where people are from, they typically use one scale or the other. So when a European talks about a 35 C temperature, they know that means a hot day. But an American might be lost. But talk about a 95 F day, and the American knows it’s hot. Even though 35 C and 95 F represent the same temperature, not everyone understands both scales. But by and large, regardless of education, most people do understand one scale or the other.”
“The same goes for rainfall. While Europeans would express it in inches and Europeans in centimeters, both understand 4 inches or 10 centimeters of rain. Even people who are illiterate and can not read letters can often read numbers. So the understanding of these metrics, whether oral or written, is widespread and does not require any special education.”
The aliens nod, and we continue. We explain that we can also predict each of these elements of weather up to a few days in the future with some accuracy. We can predict a high and a low temperature for tomorrow. We might predict gale force winds and our satellites can even spot storms on the ocean days before they reach land or begin to develop into a hurricane. While the hurricane might not reach shore, we might predict heavy rainfall and perhaps issue an alert for flash flooding.
The aliens nod, and they ask us another question,
“How do you measure this rainfall?”
“Yes our meteorologists and hydrologists using a class of devices called a rain gauge. 2,500 years ago a people named the Greeks began to keep records of rainfall. A hundred years later people India also began keeping records. At its simplest form the gauge is a cup or bucket. When the cup or bucket fills, it tips allowing the water to spill out, records the tip, and rights itself to fill again.
We have more technical rain gauges like an udometer, ombrometer, or a pluviometer. Jardi’s pluviometer is an older analog device that measures and records the amount of rainfall at regular intervals in millimeters per square meter. More recently we also have an optical rain gauge which uses lasers and an acoustical disdrometer which measures the sound signatures of each rain drop. It informs us of drop size, distribution, and other properties of rainfall.”
The aliens nod and ask another question,
“Yes with respect to rainfall, what about sunfall?”
“Oh, you mean sunset? Yes of course”, we swipe up and show the sunrise and sunset times of at the bottom of the screen.
“No,” the alien clarifies, “I mean if you measure rain-fall in inches, how do you measure sun-fall, the amount of sunlight that falls on an area in a day?”
“Oh,” we stoop a bit. “Yes, we just say, ‘partly sunny’ or ‘sunny’ or ‘partly cloudy.’ Umm, sometimes we say ‘overcast.’
The aliens look at each other. We look at each other. We look at the aliens, and they look at us.
We continue, “Sometimes we use the unit lumen to describe light. The lumen is based on light from a single candle and typically measured with a light meter for photography. We do have a UV index of 1-10 to express the levels of ultraviolet sunlight which burns our skin.”
The aliens ask us,
“So to confirm, you have subjective words and objective metrics in multiple scales and systems to describe weather and these words and metrics are generally understood by your peoples around the world. For temperature, might say subjectively that is is hot, warm, etc. and also use an objective metric in one of 3 scales, C, F, and K. For humidity, you might say dry, humid, muggy, etc and express that in a percentage.
“Yes,” we reply. “That is correct.”
The alien continues,
“For rainfall, you might say light rain, heavy rain, or flash flooding and express that in inches or centimeters. If you collect 1mm of rainfall in a 1 square meter tray, you will have 1 liter of water.
But for sunfall or sun-something, you only have the subjective terms sunny, partly sunny, overcast, cloudy, etc. In so far as what is universally understood as weather metrics, you do not have a unit of measurement, a metric, for measuring the amount of sun landing on a given surface area of your planet over time?
“Yes,” we reply. “That is correct.”
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