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
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Quick, everyone! Move to the north! Maybe we can straighten the earth’s spin out!
LOL!
Its great to know that more and more things are a direct effect of Anthropogenic climate change and global warming. Perhaps magnetic poles are a by product of this amazing c02 gas. In fact, it looks like the whole balance of life as we understand it, from the beginning of time to the end of physics are caused by the properties of this greenhouse gas. Its the new Big Bang theory. It simplifies cosmology. Forget all the Newtonian and post newtonian physics.
It was c02 all the time.
Wow is all I have to say.
Do want to talk moving masses ??? – let’s talk plate tectonics. Plates move any where from 2.5 to 15 cm per year. So what moves more mass – the entire continent of North America moving 5 cm/yr or a miniscule amount of ice melting on one small part of that continent (Greenland) ?? It’s a literal drop in the bucket.
Yes, in theory, it will all have some effect on mass distribution, which yes in theory will change the axis of rotation, but this is such a minor effect compared to tectonic mass redistributions & yet it is written up as if it is a big deal and something we should worry about. Unbelievable !
Alarmist hype at it is worst !! (and abuse of geophysics – which I take personally offense with as a practicing geophysicist)
Breaking news. Latest research suggests that its not the sun’s gravitational pull, but the respective concentrations of c02 on planets orbiting it that causes their respective trajectories around the sun. Researchers suggest that the sun itself is a massive c02 bomb just waiting to explode, throwing fire from the skies.
To speak seriously, its amazing how NASA can say that greenhouse gases can heat the oceans. Do they provide in the public domain a model of how this happens? It defied the basic physical laws. (Longwave radiation isn’t trapped by oceans). If a source of radiation heats to an optimum temperature – say 25C, then how could a 3rd power (re-radiated longwave heat – a fraction of which is temporarily suspended by ghg’s at a greatly reduced temperature from the optimum) possibly send it above 25C?
Its as though they think that if you add water at 20C to the equivalent volume of water at 22C, you’ll have a body of water at 42C.
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.
If I had just picked up a newspaper & started reading this, I would have sworn it was going to be a study on obesity.
So the sun doesn’t warm the oceans after all…..
And perhaps if I move far enough out west I’ll be able to see the sun set in the east.
The most significant danger facing this planet is from the proliferation of wind-farms.
These enormous turbines, all facing into the wind, will effectively slow the planet’s rotation, albeit by an infinitesmal amount, somewhat akin to putting one’s hand into the airstream of a speeding Prius.
If you have enough of these turbines, a tipping point is reached, the Earth’s rotation slows, and there are MORE daylight hours, and hence, greater Global Warming.
I suppose if we lived 1000 years + we might be able to record/experience some “climate change” but then it would still go up and down. Remember the universe started 15 billion years ago (big bang) and it is expected to fade away in 15 billion years. Good luck warmistas I hope you keep your jobs for at least the next 3 years!
So, to summarise: “The sky is falling, the sky is falling!… erm, just not very much, and you probably won’t even notice. Sorry. Carry on. We’re just justifying our grant money here, even though we can’t prove a thing.”
Great. This is the same level of tat as “an ice-free arctic”.
We are now officially in the stupid phase of AGW hype.
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. Since that pulls mass closer to the planet’s spin axis, it causes the planet to rotate faster – just as an ice skater spins faster when she pulls her arms towards her body.
Then Mars will become jealous and have one of her moons kneecap us.
For those who may be mathematically inclined, you may find the papers archived on this site to be of interest: http://ba.stat.cmu.edu/ . This is the ISBA Journal maintained at Carnegie Mellon. Search on key words such as “Climate” to retrieve those which discuss the modeling methods used in climate research. Many are quite critical of those methods.
Holy cow .. do they ever stop making stuff up?
the_Butcher (00:54:53) :
This Warming hysteria is getting really annoying
Stupidly wearisome…
Perhaps it´s spinning dangerously to the left…
Perhaps this New Scientist is really a spin off of the Daily Onion?
We are now at the point similar to that of early paleontology, when the workers started mixing in the forged fossils, and to show they were authentic, signed ‘YHWH’ to the, And their sponsor thought it was proof of his theory.
The axial tilt is already changing due to the Milankovitch cycles.
The tilt will move from its current 23.44 degrees to 22.1 degrees in about 8,000 years.
This is the equivalent of 176 kms or 2.2 metres per year for the next 8,000 years.
This little 2.6 cms per year estimate will change the 176.0 km by 0.2 kms (nothing really).
Going by the Milankovitch cycles, the ice will start building up on Ellesmere Island, Baffin Island and the Torngut mountains in northern Quebec in about 5,000 years so the ice-albedo feedback will start slipping us back into the next ice age around that time anyway and the 2.6 cms will go the other way.
Ron de Haan (04:43:10) :
rooms without windows and Co2 levels of 1500 ppm
For those who don´t know it, this is real:
http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/abstract/102/426/52
so its not runaway global warming alone we should be worried about. Its runaway spin, tilt and wobble too. We’ll all be hot and dizzy and disoriented in years to come. Life will be a non stop dance floor. There’s a business opportunity in gyroscope offsetting there.
First we had the “Axis of Evil”.
Now we have the “Axis of Doom”.
Did Monty Python write this paper?
“Watch out that rabbit!”
Thanks for posting that link NofW.
So is this real
http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/180CO2_supp.htm
there are some 90,000 scientifically valid measurements of c02 from 1810 to 1957 that frequently surpass 400ppm occasionally at 600ppm throughout the northern hemisphere. These measurements are censored by the IPCC, who rely on proxies from ice cores. Yet they’re scientifically valid.
addendum:
http://www.biomind.de/nogreenhouse/daten/EE%2018-2_Beck.pdf
Hmm, the usual trolls seem to be absent for this post.
Maybe even they’re embarrassed by this tripe.
Still, given some of the indefensible things they defend, I’m mildly surprised. 🙂