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?"

Comments

Someone must do something!

[Greyjack]

De Viron's team found that earthlings can expect the length of an average day to increase by 11 millionths of a second per decade, corresponding to an overall increase of about one ten-thousandth of a second by the close of the century.

Oh... my... GOD! The ramifications of this are... uh, on second thought, never mind.

Pshaw, I bet we could accelerate the Earth more effectively than that if we'd all get together on the first of every month, point all our cars West, and punch the accelerator simultaneously.

11 microseconds per decade?

[glitch!]

Wow, this hypothesis suggests that global warming may result in the Earth slowing down its rotation by 11 microseconds per decade. I had better make sure my earthquake insurance is paid up.

What they don't mention is how much NORMAL slowdown we can expect from other causes, such as the transfer of angular momentum from the Earth to the moon. I don't recall the numbers, but I am sure the moon will be a much larger factor than the variation in air currents.

Re:11 microseconds per decade?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Ok, some quick math.

[Restil]

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

The study

[macdaddy]

I heard about a study that was talked about on Discovery about two common myths, global warming and deforestation. I haven't seen it on Discovery though. What it boiled down to was some time back a bunch of scientists and other *ologists (thousands) signed a paper saying that both were real and major problems. Supposedly it got press coverage out the ass. This Discovery special was about about another paper that came out right after the first (because of the first) from many many more thousands of scientists and other *ologists that said that both were a crock of shit, media and political propoganda. Oddly enough the media didn't give the 2nd paper much billing (I wonder why...). The 2nd paper and the people that signed it proved that deforestation was not a problem and that their research showed that our planet's tree population was far greater than it was in the 1920's and increasing rapidly. They of course did say that chopping down unexplored rain forests could very likely wipe out plant and animal life that had never been recorded. Of course that's no deforestation. They also proved that the Earth is not getting warmer. They proved that in fact the Earth is really getting colder. In the short term were are reaching the peak of some loop that I can't recall the name of. It's supposed to be some variation in the distance from the Sun we typically follow. It's not a round path we follow. It's more oval. Elyptical (sp?). And it varies over time and repeats itself. We're reaching the hotter part of that peak. We are however in the long run starting another Ice Age. Yes, it's true. All these record highs recorded this winter do not mean that the Earth is really warming. They don't support global warming in the least. We are actually cooling in the long run. We will have another ice age before the Sun starts growing to the point that it will cause Earth to heat up. The short time period has us getting warmer. The medium time period has us starting and ice age. The long term time period has the Sun frying our asses.

All these scientists that signed the 2nd paper discounted what the 1st guys said and they did it with an overwhelming number of people. Of course the media didn't cover that. The media never wants to cover something like that. Blood and guts sells. Death and destruction sells. Conspiracy sells. Telling the public that violence in schools is actually decreasing and is lower now than it was in the troubled 70s doesn't sell. Plastering a blood-splattered babbling kid on the evening news that "saw it all" sells.

Enough of my rambling. You've heard it all before. My question is, has anyone seen this Discovery episode? Does anyone know where more information can be had? I'd love to see the episode. It sounds like a good one. I still like the one that proved that something like 600 million years ago we had a Snow Ball Earth and the one that proved all human life as we know it today originated from deep within Africa. Both of those were good shows.

"More profoundly"?

[The Monster]

efuseekay writes:

is more profoundly affected by tidal locking with the moon than fluvial effects

While the story itself says [emphasis mine]:

expect the length of an average day to increase by 11 millionths of a second per decade, corresponding to an overall increase of about one ten-thousandth of a second by the close of the century

Since the people who tend the atomic clocks have been adding at least one "leap second" each year for as long as I can remember (inserted as 23:59:60 GMT on 31 Dec, with the occasional extra at the same time on 30 Jun), it would seem that it would take tens of millenia before this factor is even a blip, much less 'profound'. The article closes with this Burning Question:

How will the diurnal rhythms of animals and plants be affected in coming millennia? Only time will tell.

Is there any animal or plant with a rhythm that can be measured in nanoseconds? If so, why are we not using them instead of those atomic clocks?

Re:Global Warming is very real ...

[canadian_right]

One of the odd things about changing global weather paterns is some of the unexpected side affects. Global warming may decrease the temperature in Northern Europe by a few degrees by changing some rather major artic ocean currents. Warming would bring a major cold stream that is currently quite deep (and makes it farther south) to raise up and cool Europe.

Weather is very complicated. Global warming will not simply give us the same weather, but warmer. It will cause strange, and unexpected new weather patterns. Storms will tend to be more intense (high temp = more energy), some places will get wetter, some drier, some warmer, some cooler.

But all this is nothing compared to the Ocean's rising if it actually get warm enough to break up the antartic ice shelf.

And all xfiles people know that global warming is being orchestrated by a global conspiracy of GOOD guys to stave off an imminent ice-age!

Re:Global warming finally making itself present..

[cp99]

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.

Re:Global warming finally making itself present..

[LadyLucky]

OK, I'll bite.,

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.

Re:Global warming finally making itself present..

[Lumpy]

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.

any sattelite orbiting at an altitude of 1Km would be a wild fireball that would either last 3 seconds and then cease to exist or cause thousands of UFO sightings and cause accidents with aircraft.

I have been above 1Km at least 60 times in my life (a private aircraft, single prop without a pressurized cabin can get to 2km easily. and I can positively say that there are NO sattelites at that altitude...

Oh and weather balloons, hang aroud 30-50Km high.