China's Northern Lights

[woodcutter]

Lonely Planet 2007, and a couple of web sources, indicate that in Mohe, China's most northerly town, you can see the northern lights, and there are 22 hours daylight in the summer (20 from another web source).

The place is on a latitude which looking across the map looks similar to Liverpool, UK.

WTF?

[roddy]

Seems Mohe currently has about seventeen hours of daylight, so twenty or twenty-two on the longest day of the year two weeks ago seems a bit ambitious. Although i wouldn't put it past a local tourist bureau to use the sunrise time in Shanghai and the sunset time in Kashgar to prove that yes, Mohe has 26 hours of sunlight every day.

Northern lights I'm not sure about - certainly when conditions are right you can get them a lot further south than normal, but I doubt they'd be very regular.

[woodcutter]

I don't see any reason why the frequency should be any greater than in Liverpool just because it is cold and snowy.

I suspect "tourist-bureau" is indeed a key word here, and "idiotic travel writer" may also be an important phrase.

[imron]

I wonder if light pollution also might have something to do with it? In this regard, there's a big difference between Liverpool and northern China.

[Rincewind]

Light pollution would have a big effect on the viability of anything in the night sky. Another major affect of the UK is clouds. A typical UK sky in winter (which is when your most likely to see the effect) is overcast. You need the right conditions at the right time of year with a clear sky and away form big cities with lights in order to see the Northern Lights.

However, there are often sightings form the UK. Some as far south as Nottinghamshire (see http://www.dcs.lancs.ac.uk/iono/aurorawatch/cgi-bin/view_reports?mode=all ). Also you have to remember it's the proximity to the magnetic pole, not the geographic pole, that is important. So latitude does not tell you everything. The magnetic pole is skewed towards western Canada which explains why Canada gets more Northern Lights than the UK despite Canada's main cities being further South than much of the UK's cities.

I would hazard that on a clear winters night in the north of China with the right sun activity, you would be able to see the Northern Lights. However, I wouldn't plan a trip there just for that. If you want to see the Lights, the Canada would be a much better choice.

[roddy]

I was looking at that map thinking 'what on earth is that big island off Japan?' until I realized that it was South Korea. North Korea just kind of fades into the sea . . .

[flameproof]

Interesting, I remember that Beijing, Madrid and New York are on the same latitude.

China most northern point is about N53º33'.

Some places on a similar latitude:

Quebec

Dublin

Liverpool

Hamburg

But with a bit of Maotai everything is possible.............

[woodcutter]

I don't see how you could go to Mohe with the faintest expectation of seeing Northern lights though, following what people have said.

I just looked across roughly on a small map - seems like I'm a good latitude guesser!

[student]

Here are a couple of reports of the Aurora Borealis in China:

is the translation of two reports by Chinese meteorological stations published in 1959.

http://virtual.finland.fi/Nature_Environment/aurora/history.html

claims that

There is a lot of documentation about the northern lights in the cultures of eastern Asia. Several references to the northern lights appeared in China more than 2,000 years ago. A list of auroral observations in China starts in 687 BC. On the average, there is about one observation of the aurora described in the list during every 40 years. Chinese people never used any special name for the northern lights. Instead, the heavenly lights were described by using terms characterising fire and animals, especially the dragon.

The oldest written document is approximately from the year 2,600 BC. Its contents tell us the following beautiful story: "Fu-Pao, the mother of the Yellow Empire Shuan-Yuan, saw strong lightning moving around the star Su, which belongs to the constellation of Bei-Dou, and the light illuminated the whole area. After that she became pregnant." Stars were obviously visible and the observing direction was northward. The light was bright enough to illuminate the landscape. Lightning is a term that is often connected with the old auroral descriptions. The pregnancy is essential in this historical tale.

In fact, http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/Aurora/index.html

suggests that it should just reach china for activity of KP 9, which happens perhaps a few times a year.

[flameproof]

It's probably marketing. Tasmania markets themselves as gate to the South Pole. True, there is just water in between. But Tasmania is as far from the South Pole as Barcelona is from the North pole.

[woodcutter]

The magnetic latitude map seems to indicate that Mohe would be on a line with London rather than Liverpool, and since the magnetic pole is tilted towards Canada, that would seem to be away from China.

The historical "lights in the sky" mentioned don't seem to be very convincing as northern lights. Are there better descriptions?