"It's very interesting that we can get these correlations using equipment a half-mile underground," Osprey said. The researchers found that muon counts correlated to stratospheric temperature readings within about one degree in data collected over a four-year period. The study will be published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. Osprey said he doesn't see muon meteorology replacing traditional satellite and balloon-based weather forecasting techniques, but it could be useful for round-the-clock atmospheric monitoring and other niche applications. "This is the biggest step we've taken in terms of interdisciplinary work," notes Robert Plunkett, a particle physicist with Illinois-based Fermilab, which collects muon data to calibrate its instruments for unrelated studies of neutrinos. "These effects should have been discovered 50 years ago," added Osprey. "It's quite a predictable result. Climate scientists and particle physicists haven't been talking together." Related Links: |
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