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I am interested in the linkage between the cyclical timing of human activity, and whether that has a direct affect on weather. Most obvious to me is the weekly cycle, which is observed by most of the world.

For example, humans generally produce less air emissions on the weekends because they do not have to commute to work, and some businesses are less active. This means there are less cars on the road (or for less time) and therefore less vehicular emissions. In some cities, this can lead to an effect during the summer where ozone concentrations are higher on weekdays and reduced on the weekends. There are also instances where human activity can lead to higher particulate emissions on weekdays, which could cause weekly patterns in fog or albedo. In general, if the radiation budget is perturbed, it could theoretically affect weather.

Perhaps there are other examples too. So, is there any link between the weekly human cycle and weather?

f.thorpe
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  • This is a good question in general, but can you source humans are generally less active on the weekends. I'm not disagreeing with you, but people do travel on weekends and perform recreational activities, so I don't know if weekends = more activity, less activity, or same amount of activity (but different type of activity). Additionally, people who stay home may use more heat or AC since they're not at work all day. –  Nov 28 '19 at 14:50
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    Here's a couple links that talk about the day of week emissions change. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/11080531_Modeling_the_Effect_of_Weekday-Weekend_Differences_in_Motor_Vehicle_Emissions_on_Photochemical_Air_Pollution_in_Central_California and https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1352231018307854 – f.thorpe Nov 28 '19 at 18:32
  • In general, the total emissions are less on the weekends for large cities, and the diurnal pattern is different. This is a core understanding in the field of air quality monitoring and modeling. So, in general, I am confident that the weekday/weekend air emissions cycle exists, but I have no idea if this affects weather beyond localized aerosols scattering light. – f.thorpe Nov 28 '19 at 18:38
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    It is difficult to reply. Considering CO2 as sample: The biggest actors on human air emissions are the petrol companies (35%) and the cement companies 8%. Those industries are working 24 hours a day and 365 days a year. That is 43% of the emissions and there are always there. Transportation is just 16% of the emissions, and some of it is the one that it is reducing... – David García Bodego Dec 02 '19 at 10:05
  • ... So I don´t think that that reduction can reduce the total emissions (so it could be related with the weather). Maybe in a local environment. – David García Bodego Dec 02 '19 at 10:05
  • That's a good point, thanks. – f.thorpe Dec 03 '19 at 04:27
  • Weekly cycle in the intensity of anthropogenic emission sources is included in most numerical models used for tracking chemical pollutants concentrations. On the other hand weather is mainly affected by regional and global processes and to a lesser extent by local events, so I would not expect the weekly cycle to have any significant effect on weather. It would be interesting to see if this was different in the past. – Dima Chubarov Dec 09 '19 at 14:23
  • My answer to https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/18663/weather-forecast may help-- you are seeking a correlation between weekday and weather conditions –  Dec 11 '19 at 02:23
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    Check out the Rosenfeld and Bell 2011 paper on aerosol feedback affecting cloud, hailstorm and tornadoes formation https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20110015368.pdf – Dima Chubarov Dec 13 '19 at 06:12
  • Wow that paper is a great example! These links are also related: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2011JD016214 https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/12/111229-tornadoes-storms-hail-science-summer-pollution-environment/ – f.thorpe Dec 14 '19 at 01:04

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Human activity can change weather locally, for example if you live in lower floors in a hotel room besides a hectic highway it would certainly be cooler whenever traffic is lower because of the combustion engines, but on other level certainly trees grow faster closer to hectic highways from car emissions of CO2 and thus provide more canopy and in some sense change the pavement habitat a little bit.. But usually one ought to think that the city exists somewhere because the weather allows it and poor human planning and projects are defeated by weather agents along the way in history.

I am sure there are other examples of local weather being affected by concrete, i.e. city formation, such as thermal inversion. But remember that the atmosphere behaves like a liquid and is constantly being moved about by hydrodynamical forces and any particles tend to precipitate or be blown away.

Not sure about what you said about ozone, though. Ozone is primarily produced by ultraviolet light from the sun. Sun ultraviolet rays hit oxygen and produce ozone so oxygen will protect humans from ultraviolet light whenever sun rays contact oxygen, not at night obviously and less in winter times.

Fred
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Biology Blogger
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  • In the troposphere (in other words at elevations we typically live at), ozone is generally a result of combustion rather than UV production... so when it comes to experiential weather (and keeping in mind most "active" weather is also produced in the troposphere) what he asks about ozone is a very valid topic of interest to the question, and whether it impacts weather well beyond UV levels (given the relatively low values compared to the stratosphere, tropospheric ozone is a low factor in that anyways) is a fair question. – JeopardyTempest Feb 16 '22 at 15:57