Moon's gravitational pull makes our atmosphere resonate like sound waves in bell: Study

A new study, published in the Journal of Atmospheric Sciences, has argued that some sky waves resonate in the earth’s atmosphere like sound waves resonate inside a bell. Scientists believe that the moon not only tugs at earth’s water but also pulls the earth’s atmosphere along with the sun, creating atmospheric waves.

In addition, the energy moving through the air, in the form of gravitational pull, heat pressure, etc. is also believed to create these waves. The study states that these waves do not slosh around like oceanic waves but are moving pockets of tightly packed air, thousands of kilometres away.

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Research on atmospheric waves 

The research was initiated by Takatoshi Sakazaki from Kyoto University and Kevin Hamilton, an atmospheric scientist from the University of Hawaii who decided to explore the atmospheric pressure data across 38 hours. For the purpose, they collected data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF).

The European Weather organisation provides hourly estimates of many global atmospheric, land, and ocean climate variables within five days of real-time. It also contains masses of re-analysed historical observations of these measurements, extending the dataset all the way back to 1979.

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With this scale of information, the researchers could observe previously detected lunar and solar atmospheric waves, along with some "randomly excited global-scale resonant modes.” 

As per the scientists, if air travels at the right height and speed, the wind can become in tune with the atmosphere, creating resonance. This allows the waves to form a pattern stable enough to vibrate across the entire global atmosphere, like sound waves ringing through a bell. 

Moreover, substantiating the theory, researchers found sets of resonating sky waves that spread across the planet, thus contributing to earth’s bell-like ringing including multiple resonant waves circling tropical regions.

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Image credits: Unsplash / thomasrichter