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Warming and Slowing the World
chrisleonard writes "We all know that global warming is supposed to heat the planet up, but did you know that it might also slow it down? According to a report from Belgium's Royal Observatory (as reported here by astronomy.com), if the days seem a little longer to you than they used to, it might not be just old age catching up with you. Would it be wrong to call the interaction of the world's warming temperatures and its slowing rotation ... a snowball effect?"
I thought this might be an interesting study to read about until I read it, and got to the part that says, 'Viron's team found that earthlings can expect the length of an average day to increase by 11 millionths of a second per decade' I bet these scientists could think of something a little more relavent to life as it affects us in our lifetime to research.
Don't Tread on Me
1/10000 of a second every century we shall slow down.
This means, that to gain ONE SECOND of our preciously short day, we will have to wait 1 MILLION years. This means, that by the time the
sun explodes, our day will be approximately 83 minutes longer. I'm sorry if I choose not to get excited about this.
In retrospect, the earth's rotation is slowing due to other factors, primarily tidal forces from the moon at a rate of 22 seconds every million years. It will eventually slow to the point where it takes one month to make a complete revolution, in perfect tidal lock with the moon. Or at least it would, although its still unlikely to make it before the sun goes.
Either way, I don't plan to lose any sleep over it. Of all the scares from global warming, this is one of the least disconcerting.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
That's right. The length of the day increasing by 11us per decade is insignificant compared to the 2 milliseconds per century = 200us per decade increase due to the interaction with the Moon.
Also, cnn had the story 4 days ago.
much more pronounced than the one mentioned in the article (though of course not as dramatic as 1010011010 makes it sound)
much more likely than the one mentioned in the article
much more interesting than the one mentioned in the article
much more established than the one mentioned in the article
-- MarkusQ
P.S. There was a very interesting comparison floating around a few years back (it was cited against me in an argument about my shorting idiodic dot com stocks) between the global warming data and the exponential growth of the internet economy. I replied that I agreed, and that I thought both "trends" were drawing conclussions far in excess of the data.
Boy, did I get flamed.
If anybody has the article I'd love to have a link/copy.
I'm sorry, but I'm going to pipe up here.
If you're basing "global warming" off anecdotal evidence, Canberra in Australia (where I live) has just had one of the coolest summers ever. The opposite of your experience. And please, don't try that b-s line on me that "global warming makes the extremes greater", because that's not global warming.
But allow me to present the case against the global warming phenomenon.
1. The temperature that is used by most scientists to prove the world is "warming up" is taken at posts that have been established for circa 100 years. Any further back than that there's no guarantee that the information is accurate. As a result of scientists normally living in larger cities as opposed to country towns, most of those weather posts were set up beyond the outskirts of large towns/cities approximately one hundred years ago.
However, as is the nature of these cities, they have grown/sprawled to encompass these weather posts. Now, as any scientist can tell you, cities are warmer than their surrounding regions. It's known as the "urban heat island effect". Tarmac, cement and all those other human building materials absorb and retain a much greater proportion of the heat that hits them during the day than does undeveloped land. Try walking over bitumen during a hot day and then walk over dirt. You'll see what I mean.
As these hotter cities expand to encompass the temperature stations, the temperature recorded by them is artificially increased. However, it's an extremely localised effect - the city is warmer, yes, but there's no way that the city is warm enough to have any effect on the surrounding countryside. It doesn't warm the globe up.
So, to begin with, almost all the statistics the global warming proponents are chucking round are incorrect.
2. Furthermore, land covers only 1/3 of the earth's surface. The other 2/3 is the ocean. Funnily enough, scientists haven't measured the temperature of the ocean over the past 100 years - there are generally only temperature stations located on the land. So the statistics that I've outlined above, that I believe already are flawed, are no greater than 30% of the surface area of the planet.
3. NASA satellites (which have been measuring the temperature of one of the atmospheres of the planet - I forget it's name, but it's about 1km above the surface of the planet) shows that the planet has actually been cooling down since the records have recorded. How is it that the planet has been warming up yet the atmosphere cooling down? And remember, these statistics are taken for the entire planet, not just the area over which is land.
4. From core samples that have been taken in various places over the planet, scientists have been able to determine both carbon dioxide and temperature levels. They've graphed both these over hundreds of thousands to millions of years, and guess what it showed - carbon dioxide moves as a result of temperature, as opposed to vice versa.
5. Another scientific experiment that's very interesting - in an isolated greenhouse, increase the proportion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Guess what you'll find? That the trees/plants grow faster. And as such, increase their intake of carbon dioxide, and produce more oxygen!
As such, my opinion is that the effort that is spent worried about global warming should instead be re-directed towards the preservation of native habitats, especially old growth forests which are our greatest ally as carbon dioxide recyclers. They are, quite literally, the lungs of our planet.
-- james
ps For some of those statistics I've used above (NASA satellite links, core samples, etc) please head to http://www.vision.net.au/~daly/
This is an independently (ie no finance from oil company, etc) run web site run by a man named John Daly, who like myself, believes that the Greenhouse Effect is nothing more than hot air.
You might have missed where last week, the leader of a violent terrorist organization, which has taken credit for many bombings and destructive acts in the United States, was questioned before congress under oath.
The leader "plead the fifth" on everything.
The violent terrorist group? Earth Liberation Front (or something like that), a bunch of ecological extremists that the media happens to approve of.
It isn't that the media is deliberately biased, just that they tend to report what they support, and ignore as "not news" those things they disagree with.
Another example is defensive uses of firearms. 300 different stories published about the latest "school shooting", 2 of them accurately reported that the shooter was stopped by two other students (it was a college) who had their own firearms. The rest just said the perp was "tackled".
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
Actually, the greatest contributors to carbon dioxide recycling are the microscopic photosynthetic organisms that float in the ocean.
(* Global warming? It seems to be the latest fad by the environmentalists to get us to bend to their wills. *)
Although the effects are debatable, it is almost an accepted fact that the ratio of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere *is* changing rapidly due to our activities.
Thus, what actual changes we are making to the earth as a whole are disputable, it is almost a certain fact that we *are* making significant changes to the atmosphere itself that are not "normal" (within the timeframe of millions of years).
Table-ized A.I.
If you're basing "global warming" off anecdotal evidence, Canberra in Australia (where I live) has just had one of the coolest summers ever. The opposite of your experience. And please, don't try that b-s line on me that "global warming makes the extremes greater", because that's not global warming.
Err... you are aware that putting more water vapour into the atmosphere "makes the extremes greater". If anecdotal evidence is what we're looking for for, then Canberra's recent heavy rainfall should provide evidence of this.
But allow me to present the case against the global warming phenomenon.
1)
Do you have any evidence (peer-reviewed, of course) for this? Forgive my skeptism, but I would put more weight on the views of the Australian Academy of Sciences, Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Sciences and the Arts, Brazilian Academy of Sciences, Royal Society of Canada, Caribbean Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, French Academy of Sciences, German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina, Indian National Science Academy, Indonesian Academy of Sciences, Royal Irish Academy, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (Italy), Academy of Sciences Malaysia, Academy Council of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Turkish Academy of Sciences, and Royal Society (taken from a joint statement made in the journal Science), than the word of a slashdot poster.
2)
This point is just wrong. If you had have paid more attention to the link which you posted, you would find a section on measurements of temperture change in the deep sea Southern Ocean.
3)
This point ignores that loss of ozone will cause a temperture decrease in the upper atmosphere, and that the satellite data has been reexamined, and found to show a increase in the temperture.
4)
Could you please supply a citation for this. I'm interested to see how they seperated out cause and effect. I looked through your supplied link, and didn't see it.
5)
Negative feed back mechanisms have been known about for years, plant growth especially. This have been taken into account in the climatical models.
Warning: Some ideologies on the Net are smaller than they appear.
If you want to see an example of weather chaos in action, look at pictures of Mars from last October. A small dust storm grew into a planet-wide dust storm, causing real global warming due to the dust in the atmosphere.
While yes, most claims over global warming and the like are vastly exaggerated, some of what you say is not strictly correct.
1. Not sure. One thing I do know in the time I have spent doing atmospheric physics is that people are smarter than that. Temperature data is FAR FAR FAR more than a few thermometers in cities
2. There is an experiment called ATOC which has been doing just that for several decades. While this mightnt yet be long enough, the trend seen so far is for warming.
3. This is no longer correct. The satellite data to which you refer has more recently been analysed, and shows a warming effect. I believe the effect that was ignored was the spiralling in of the satellites over time, but im not sure.
4. Eh? millions of years? and you can see a cause and effect? What's more, your next point contradicts this one. CO2 and water are known greenhouse gasses. Even mars is warmed by a few degrees by its atmosphere.
5. Yes, there is a known dampening effect on greenhouse gasses. The other one is the warmer it is, the faster C02 dissolves in the ocean, leaching out as rock.
dominionrd.blogspot.com - Restaurants on
All these scientists that signed the 2nd paper discounted what the
1st guys said and they did it with an overwhelming number of people
Last time I looked, the scientific method did not include petition drives
and petition signing contests. What you may not know about the "2nd
petition" that you mention is that it was circulated, like a piece of junk
mail, to many thousands of people having no expertise in climatology. I
know this because *I* got a copy, requesting my signature, even though my
work is in computer science and engineering. *Anyone* can sign that
"2nd petition" online, right here
. This petition drive is being lead by Frederick Seitz, President Emeritus,
Rockefeller University. Anyone recall
how the Rockefellers made their fortune?
The "2nd petition" is debunked in a
letter written by top scientists from the American Meteorological Society
(AMS) and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR).
It is a fact that
CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing, it is a matter of simple physics
that increased atmospheric CO2 will lead to higher temperatures. What,
to me, still seems debatable, is what the effects of those higher temperatures
will be on the Earth's ecosystems, and human civilization in particular.
Change is certain, but the nature of the change, and the relative benefits
and drawbacks, are unknown.
Good god. It doesn't work that way.
The equatorial circumference of the earth is 40,000 kilometers.
Given that the earth rotates with a period of 24*3600 seconds, give or take a few, the velocity of a person on the equator is 40,000,000=v86,400 or 462 m/s.
Centripetal force is F=(mv^2)/r. The equatorial radius of the earth is 6,400km or so. Thus, a 100 kg person at the equator experiences F=(150*462^2)/6,400,000=5 newtons of centripetal force. One kg is 9.8 newtons. Thus, centripetal force has next to no effect on your perceived weight today.
Now. Assume that a subtraction of 2m/s of acceleration from the downward gravity induced Fw is significant. Centripetal acceleration is v^2/r. 2=v^2/6,400,000 v=3600. V would have to be 3600m/s for a significant counter to gravitational force. Note that this is 9 times the current value, so the earth's day would have to be less than 3 hours long. I don't think that's very bloody likely.
Yes, I know that centripetal force is actually an inward force and isn't applicable in this situation. But the magnitude of centripetal force is equivalent to the magnitude of centrifugal force, which I didn't use because it doesn't actually exist. At any rate, it all works out. Trust me.
-David
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Most atmospheric scientists are quite concerned about global warming (in fact you have to pay a lot tet one to say it isn't happening). A large majority of atmospheric scientists believe that anthropogenic carbon is a factor in global warming
The US is not the only detractor, Canada and Australia both have major issues with it and fact that it will do little more than punish larger, countries with fewer general pollution problems.
While there are apparently a lot of scientists for sale in the US, in Australia, there is only a single University employed atmospheric scientist who argues against the view that human activity is a major factor in global warming. Even he is not of course stupid enough to argue that global warming is occuring (that simply a matter of getting the measurements and doing the stats). The people who have major issues with reducing greenhouse gas emissions are not scientist silly, they are economists and politicians. That is to say they, like you, lack the education to understand the problem.