Moving Christmas

[CSM]

The avalanche of astronomical Christmas presents has had a very, very bad effect on the weather. Why astronomers should be singled out in this manner had always been a puzzle to me until, on one of my weekly wildlife walks at the National Botanic Garden of Wales I happened to meet one of Santa's little helpers.  For reasons of security I can't divulge his or her name, though I can say that it began with the letter R.

Anyway, as you all may know, due to the enormous increase in world population and the number of Christmas presents that have to be delivered, Santa has had to recruit additional help.  Furthermore the actual distribution system has had to be upgraded and extended.  So to solve this problem Santa has devised a very clever routing system similar to the stacking used by air traffic control, only far more extensive and sophisticated as it must be if it is to cover the whole of the world.  And different types of presents are allocated to different levels and it would appear that the one allocated to astronomers for their presents has a particularly unfortunate effect on the weather in terms of cloud formation in the Northern hemisphere and excessive heat in the Antipodes.  Why this should be I cannot understand.  This may have been further aggravated by the recent reversal of the Sun's magnetic field.  My informant also mentioned something about the  fact that so many presents are now distributed via the Amazon, though why this area of the world should have such far reaching effects on the weather is beyond me.  He also added, and this was the main reason for his visit, that Santa is getting a bit old and with all this extra work he really needs all the help that he can get.  Some of these larger mounts and scopes do weigh an awful lot and now that most chimneys have disappeared entrance isn't as easy as it used to be.

Pondering all of this over a very wet and windy drive home after the New Year, I came to the conclusion that there were only two possible solutions as far as astronomers were concerned.  Either Christmas is moved to some more auspicious date or it is spread over the year.  And it has to be done in such a way as to increase the number of clear sky nights, otherwise it would be pointless.  We have to devise some kind of world-wide weather dependent algorithm which also takes account of global warming or global cooling, increases in the ozone layer and acidity of the ocean, etc, etc.   A fiendishly difficult task on a par with solving Fermat's last theorem but a challenge which I hope the more mathematically minded astronomers would rise to.

Obviously any change or changes would impinge greatly on the astronomy shops and suppliers, but I feel sure that the increase in sales which would result from more people taking up the hobby, and existing astronomers buying yet more gear, would more than compensate for the inconvenience caused.  We may represent just a small minority in the great scheme of Christmas presents, but I was assured that any help we could give would greatly ease Santa's burden.  

I should add that I am no great linguist and it is more than possible that I have misunderstood or garbled some of the points that were raised.  Most helpers are fluent in many languages but this one persisted in trying to speak Welsh - apparently they have to converse in the language of the country they are in.

[bingevader]

I spotted a flaw in your brilliant theory.

The weather has been pants all year, Christmas has had nothing to do with it! 

However, having watched University Challenge for many years, the answer to most bonus questions to do with algorithms is usually 1 (eventually). If not, it's probably 42.

Furthermore, I'm not certain as to the validity of your source, I thought it was all done with magic! I'm sad now. 

Cheers

[CSM]

Bingevader - of course magic is involved.  But that doesn't preclude the science needed to set the original parameters for each series of flights.