Wer kann helfen???

[Claudia (Chemnitz)]

In einer der letzten Ausgaben von Weatherwise war der folgende interessante Artikel zu finden. Würde ihn gern in der nächsten Ausgabe von METEOROS unterbringen, aber leider reichen meine Englischkenntnisse nicht aus, um das Ganze in ein gutes Deutsch zu übersetzen. Kann jemand helfen?

Vielen Dank und viele Grüße
Claudia

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Sun Dogs (Bitte als Eigenname lassen)

In the March /April 2001 issue of Weatherwise,

Bruce Oldfield of Broome Community College, Binghamton, New York, asked . . .

Why are parhelia called "sun dogs?" Is there a connection to the Greek myths about Helios, his chariots, and horses? If so, what are the names of the sun dogs? (The names of the horses pulling Helios' chariot are relatively easy to find.) These questions have "dogged" my introductory meteorology students and me for years.

ANSWER:
Despite good help from a highly competent science librarian, Jane Watterson of Boulder, Colorado; Penn State University professor Craig Bohren, a long-time contributor to Weatherwise and an expert of atmospheric optics; and my daughter, Deborah Carstens, who coincidentally teaches a high school mythology course, I have reached a dead end. But it was an interesting journey.

The technical name for sun dogs is "parhelia," which are patches of colored light, occasionally brilliant, that accompany the sun about 22 degrees of arc to the right or left. They are most prominent when the sun is low in the sky and are caused by the refraction of sunlight by hexagonal plate crystals in cirrus clouds. This kind of crystal tends to fall with its two hexagonal faces nearly horizontal, which causes the light display on either side of the sun.

My search began with the usual sources: glossaries, textbooks on atmospheric optics, and a few popular articles. This led nowhere.

Dictionaries were somewhat more helpful. The Random House Dictionary notes that the first known use of the term "sun dog" was in the mid-1600s but it gives no details. I then went to the unabridged Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the authority on the origin of most words and phrases in the English language. According to OED, Captain Luke Foxe, describing his search for the Northwest Passage in 1631 (through the ice of the Canadian North), was the first to use the term in his diary.

With Jane Watterson's help, we obtained a carefully researched and edited copy of the diary. The reference to a sun dog comes at the end of a brief passage describing slow progress through the pack ice, sometimes hindered by thick fog. "This evening Sun dog, I hope may bring some change to our good."

Apparently sun dogs had been named before 1631, because Captain Foxe sees no need to explain them. At the time, they were probably considered a good omen. We found that most early references to sun dogs have a seafaring connection, but even the venerable OED admits that sun dog is "of obscure origin."

Parhelion comes from the Greek language; it means, literally, "with the sun." "Helion" originated from the name of the sun god, Helios, who gives light to the world by riding through the heavens on a chariot pulled by horses.

The best known story is about Helios's son, Phaethon, who is a mortal. After swearing by the River Styx to grant his son's request, Helios is forced to go against his better judgment when Phaethon asks to drive his father's chariot around the Earth. (How many fathers are comfortable giving their 16-year-old sons the keys to the family car?) Phaethon cannot control the chariot and is killed. Dogs are not a part of this story.

I took yet another tack. Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, is called the "dog star" because it is part of the constellation Canis Major, so named because the configuration of stars in this part of the sky reminded people of a dog in ancient times. The "dog days of summer" got their name because the sun is in the same part of the sky as Sirius from early July to early September, coincident with the hot, sultry conditions of late summer in many parts of the Northern Hemisphere. Here again, I could find no connection among dog star, dog days, and sun dogs.

In the end, I am content to accept this statement from Craig Bohren: "My understanding is that the term originates from the sun dogs following or accompanying the sun, as a dog follows or accompanies its master. Mind you, I can give no reference for this. It is just something I¹ve believed for as long as I can remember."

It is not very helpful though but it does give a few ideas.

[Claudia (Chemnitz)]

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