As if we didn’t already have enough to worry about….
Excerpts from the New Scientist
Warming oceans could cause Earth’s axis to tilt in the coming century, a new study suggests. The effect was previously thought to be negligible, but researchers now say the shift will be large enough that it should be taken into account when interpreting how the Earth wobbles.
The Earth spins on an axis that is tilted some 23.5° from the vertical. But this position is far from constant – the planet’s axis is constantly shifting in response to changes in the distribution of mass around the Earth. “The Earth is like a spinning top, and if you put more mass on one side or other, the axis of rotation is going to shift slightly,” says Felix Landerer of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
The influx of fresh water from shrinking ice sheets also causes the planet to pitch over. Landerer and colleagues estimate that the melting of Greenland’s ice is already causing Earth’s axis to tilt at an annual rate of about 2.6 centimetres – and that rate may increase significantly in the coming years.
Now, they calculate that oceans warmed by the rise in greenhouse gases can also cause the Earth to tilt – a conclusion that runs counter to older models, which suggested that ocean expansion would not create a large shift in the distribution of the Earth’s mass.
…
The team found that as the oceans warm and expand, more water will be pushed up and onto the Earth’s shallower ocean shelves. Over the next century, the subtle effect is expected to cause the northern pole of Earth’s spin axis to shift by roughly 1.5 centimetres per year in the direction of Alaska and Hawaii.
The effect is relatively small. “The pole’s not going to drift away in a crazy manner,” Landerer notes, adding that it shouldn’t induce any unfortunate feedback in Earth’s climate.
…
And climate change can also affect the Earth’s spin. Previously, Landerer and colleagues showed that global warming would cause Earth’s mass to be redistributed towards higher latitudes.
Journal reference: Geophysical Research Letters (in press)
full story here
Is this change of tilt the reason why I found it difficult to keep upright on the way home from the pub last night?
Redistribution of small amounts of mass on the surface of the earth won’t change the earths’ axis enough to make any difference to clmate or anything else – just another alarmist article from the strongly pro-AGW New Scientist magazine, which I have ceased to subscribe to because of this bias.
Looks like ‘silly season’ is here again.
New Scientist is the para-military wing of GreenPeace.
Anything that New Scientist says should be ignored immediately. They should be called New Pseudo-Scientist, and stacked in shelves alongside National Inquirer and Fortean Times.
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Bloody butterflies again….
LOL
Am I being thick?
Let’s say the “shifts” take place in a 10km layer of the earth’s surface. Isn’t that a rather tiny proportion of the earth’s total mass? Can we detect wobble to that degree of accuracy? Is that enough to really make this effect? Have they compensated for upwards thrust of different areas of the globe?
What was the wobble during the ice age?
Please help before we all die.
Paul
>>>Did anyone read Charles Hapgood theory?
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Hapgood
>>>Thats old – very old news
A different theory, as I understand it. Hapgood was trying to say that the Earth’s crust slipped around its core, a bit like a lady suddenly finding the back of her dress was positioned at the front. Simply, the gyroscopic effects on the asymmetric surface masses overcame the frictional forces of the crustal/lithosphere boundary – and the whole thing slipped.
Its actually a nice idea, and first floated by Einstein, I believe. However, it is easily disproven by the straight line of the Hawaii chain of volcanoes. These have been running in a dead-straight line over a sub-terrainian hot-spot for much more than the 10,000 years that Hapgood proposed. Had the Earth’s crust really slipped, there would be a sudden and obvious disconnect in the Hawaiian island chain.
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We have to pump the seawater in to Space.
ASAP
If these ridiculus studies keep regularly appearing even the true believers will begin to suspect they have been mislead by their high priests.
So let me get this straight. warm water moves into areas in the north replacing colder heavier water and the water left behind in the tropics is what? warmer relatively. So what changes, oh the water at then poles becomes lighter. How does the salinity change?
I am not sure why this paper was ever funded but I do hope it wasn’t my tax money!!!
They could have it all arse-about, in that changes in the tilt of the earth may cause climate change.
Re: Aileni (01:59:06) :
These people should write fantasy scripts for the movies.
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Been done. See Clive Cussler’s Atlantis Found, where a bunch of evil deniers try to tilt the balance. I think he also did one on geomagnetic reversal, else Stel Pavlou has that in Decipher.
I often wonder how much pop culture feeds into pop science. Bruce Schneier coined the phrase ‘security theatre’ for exploiting differences between real risk and perceived risk. IPCC, Hansen, Gore & the media do the same with climate fears and bring us climate theatre. That gets plenty of supporters because the difference between real and perceived risk is where the biggest profits lie.
But that’s life. Geomagnetic reversal seems proven based on studying old magnetic rock, how would prior tilts during previous climatic changes be shown?
I remember reading on an AGW blog 2 or 3 years ago that earthquakes will become more common as the ice melts and reduces the weight on land in the polar regions. Therefore, tsunamis will also become more common.
This concern of course ignores the fact that the land surface is still readjusting since the last ice age. Scotland rising and southern England sinking.
…and SPIN will definently affect the reporting of Climate Change…
What this paper conclusivly confirms is that ANY research, when tied to how bad man is, will be funded, without question….
Hypothesis:
As the Earth warms, there is more hot air. Hot air is less dense – ergo the Earth becomes more buoyant, rises up in the sea of ether and is therefore blown by the solar wind further away from Sol, thus reducing temperatures and the balance of nature is restored.
Now, to find the funding…
Earth’s circumference approx 40,000 km, so in very rough terms 1degree of tilt requires a 100km shift of the pole, so 2.6 cm represents about 1/4,000,000 degree if my maths is right.
New Scientist must be scraping the barrel for AGW news to publish this!
>Landerer and colleagues estimate that the melting of Greenland’s ice is already causing Earth’s axis to tilt at an annual rate of about 2.6 centimetres <
The Earth's axial tilt varies between 22.1° and 24.5° , with a 42,000 year period, and at present, the tilt is decreasing. In addition to this steady decrease, there are also much smaller short term (18.6 years) variations, that is also affected by Sun's gravitation in its depleting angle relative to Earth's, known as nutation. so I'm told!
The Earth currently has an axial tilt of about 23.44° decreasing apparently there has been a drift of 20m westward since 1900 or about 18cm per year
given the natural variability the 2.6 cm is hardly going to be noticed.
but then which pole are we talking of the Geographical pole, the cartographical poles or the difference between them, and what allowance has been made for tectonic shifts.
http://www.physics.sfasu.edu/astro/img/northpoledrift.gif
'
Science needs a laugh track …
oops wrong polar drift map the previous one was for magnetic pole
this looks better.
http://hpiers.obspm.fr/eop-pc/products/combined/C04plot.php?date=2&dimx=600&dimy=450&graphe=12&year1=2005&month1=1&day1=1&year2=2027&month2=12&day2=31&langue=1&SUBMIT=Submit+request
It’s all the fault of those damn butterflies.
The warming affect on Earth’s “tilt” and “spin” is relatively small.
However, the amplified “tilt” and “spin” in the media shows a clear “forcing” which may reach a ‘tipping point’ as we approach Copenhagen.
It is time to make an inventory of to determine the capacity of an Enclosed Mental Institution for those suffering from Delusional Climatic Phobia and Obsessive Compulsive Climate Related Disorders.
Obligatory straitjackets, steel doors, rooms without windows and Co2 levels of 1500 ppm and are essential for a successful treatment as is an obligatory daily read of WUWT, Climate Depot and Icecap.us
The heavy guarded department will be reserved for the hard cases who believe they have the ability to control earth’s temperature by 2 degrees Celsius and those who believe human kind can’t survive without Global Governance.
Location, preferably Siberia.
take an obscure fact; cross it with the popular worry, and you have a story for a slow news day.
Goes to show what I’ve been saying for a while, that New Scientist is an ideological publication before anything else, and that ideology is left wing, anti religious and (or therefore?) pro-anthropogenic climate change, the original sin of the new religion.
The Earth is spinning out of control!!
This is yet another editorial highlight of a once good magazine.