Sensitivity and robustness of sky-polarimetric Viking navigation: Sailing success is most sensitive to night sailing, navigation periodicity and sailing date, but robust against weather conditions
Although Viking sailors did not have a magnetic compass, they could successfully navigate with a sun-compass under a sunny sky. Under cloudy/foggy conditions, they might have applied the sky-polarimetric Viking navigation (SPVN), the high success of which has been demonstrated with computer simulati...
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Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262762 https://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262762 |
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crplos:10.1371/journal.pone.0262762 2024-05-19T07:41:24+00:00 Sensitivity and robustness of sky-polarimetric Viking navigation: Sailing success is most sensitive to night sailing, navigation periodicity and sailing date, but robust against weather conditions Takács, Péter Száz, Dénes Pereszlényi, Ádám Horváth, Gábor Lolli, Simone 2022 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262762 https://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262762 en eng Public Library of Science (PLoS) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ PLOS ONE volume 17, issue 2, page e0262762 ISSN 1932-6203 journal-article 2022 crplos https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262762 2024-05-01T07:08:06Z Although Viking sailors did not have a magnetic compass, they could successfully navigate with a sun-compass under a sunny sky. Under cloudy/foggy conditions, they might have applied the sky-polarimetric Viking navigation (SPVN), the high success of which has been demonstrated with computer simulations using the following input data: sky polarization patterns measured with full-sky imaging polarimetry, and error functions of the navigation steps measured in psychophysical laboratory and planetarium experiments. As a continuation of the earlier studies, in this work we investigate the sensitivity of the success of SPVN to the following relevant sailing, meteorological and navigational parameters: sunstone type, sailing date, navigation periodicity, night sailing, dominance of strongly, medium or weakly cloudy skies, and changeability of cloudiness. Randomly varying these parameters in the simulation of Viking voyages along the latitude 60° 21’ 55’’ N from Norway to Greenland, we determined those parameters which had strong and weak influences on the success of SPVN. The following intrinsic parameters of the simulation were also randomly changed: sailing speed, visibility distance of Greenland’s southeast coastline and start time of diurnal sailing. Our results show that the sailing success is sensitive to the night sailing, navigation periodicity and sailing date, while it is robust against the sunstone type, dominance of strongly, medium or weakly cloudy skies, and changing cloudiness. Article in Journal/Newspaper Greenland PLOS PLOS ONE 17 2 e0262762 |
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English |
description |
Although Viking sailors did not have a magnetic compass, they could successfully navigate with a sun-compass under a sunny sky. Under cloudy/foggy conditions, they might have applied the sky-polarimetric Viking navigation (SPVN), the high success of which has been demonstrated with computer simulations using the following input data: sky polarization patterns measured with full-sky imaging polarimetry, and error functions of the navigation steps measured in psychophysical laboratory and planetarium experiments. As a continuation of the earlier studies, in this work we investigate the sensitivity of the success of SPVN to the following relevant sailing, meteorological and navigational parameters: sunstone type, sailing date, navigation periodicity, night sailing, dominance of strongly, medium or weakly cloudy skies, and changeability of cloudiness. Randomly varying these parameters in the simulation of Viking voyages along the latitude 60° 21’ 55’’ N from Norway to Greenland, we determined those parameters which had strong and weak influences on the success of SPVN. The following intrinsic parameters of the simulation were also randomly changed: sailing speed, visibility distance of Greenland’s southeast coastline and start time of diurnal sailing. Our results show that the sailing success is sensitive to the night sailing, navigation periodicity and sailing date, while it is robust against the sunstone type, dominance of strongly, medium or weakly cloudy skies, and changing cloudiness. |
author2 |
Lolli, Simone |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Takács, Péter Száz, Dénes Pereszlényi, Ádám Horváth, Gábor |
spellingShingle |
Takács, Péter Száz, Dénes Pereszlényi, Ádám Horváth, Gábor Sensitivity and robustness of sky-polarimetric Viking navigation: Sailing success is most sensitive to night sailing, navigation periodicity and sailing date, but robust against weather conditions |
author_facet |
Takács, Péter Száz, Dénes Pereszlényi, Ádám Horváth, Gábor |
author_sort |
Takács, Péter |
title |
Sensitivity and robustness of sky-polarimetric Viking navigation: Sailing success is most sensitive to night sailing, navigation periodicity and sailing date, but robust against weather conditions |
title_short |
Sensitivity and robustness of sky-polarimetric Viking navigation: Sailing success is most sensitive to night sailing, navigation periodicity and sailing date, but robust against weather conditions |
title_full |
Sensitivity and robustness of sky-polarimetric Viking navigation: Sailing success is most sensitive to night sailing, navigation periodicity and sailing date, but robust against weather conditions |
title_fullStr |
Sensitivity and robustness of sky-polarimetric Viking navigation: Sailing success is most sensitive to night sailing, navigation periodicity and sailing date, but robust against weather conditions |
title_full_unstemmed |
Sensitivity and robustness of sky-polarimetric Viking navigation: Sailing success is most sensitive to night sailing, navigation periodicity and sailing date, but robust against weather conditions |
title_sort |
sensitivity and robustness of sky-polarimetric viking navigation: sailing success is most sensitive to night sailing, navigation periodicity and sailing date, but robust against weather conditions |
publisher |
Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262762 https://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262762 |
genre |
Greenland |
genre_facet |
Greenland |
op_source |
PLOS ONE volume 17, issue 2, page e0262762 ISSN 1932-6203 |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262762 |
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PLOS ONE |
container_volume |
17 |
container_issue |
2 |
container_start_page |
e0262762 |
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1799480995116744704 |