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Exploiting Tomorrow's Solar Eclipse To Help Understand Sea Levels
mdsolar writes "Tomorrow at dawn on the U.S. East Coast, a partial solar eclipse will rise. Solar eclipses have many uses. They can confirm the Theory of Relativity, allow study of the solar corona, and this week, help prepare for global warming induced sea level rise. The tides induced in the oceans when the Sun and Moon are aligned are particularly high (and low) and give a foretaste of the effects of sea level rise in the coming decades. Maryland's Department of Natural Resources is asking for photos of these King Tides to help with preparation for the effect of sea level rise. Way to get out front, Maryland."
To "get in front of a problem" is slang, meaning to take steps to mitigate a predicted problem before it happens.
I've only heard it in use recently, so it's probably a recent addition. It's the "ounce of prevention" that is worth the "pound of cure".
(With gratitude to all the UK people who take the time to explain British slang. :-)
Isn't this what we have math for?
I'm going to use it to convince a primitive culture that my God has eaten the sun and that if they don't worship him and agree to build a pyramid, that they will never see their precious sun again! Muahahahahahahah! I figure I can get that all wrapped up by the time it pops back out again.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Did anyone else notice that the USA Today logo was custom-tailored to the article? Thought that was a nice touch.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
This is cute, but the difference in tidal forces between an eclipse and any other full moon is not very much-- the moon and sun are still pretty closely lined up. If it's within a few months of an eclipse, the difference is trivial. Or, for that matter, a lunar eclipse would also be as good.
Next month's full moon will have (very slightly) higher tides-- the Earth is a month closer to perihelion.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Oh don't think of it as man induce global warming, so much as, ever changing real estate values in the evolution of a planet.
I confess, It's my fault. In order to bring surf tourism to Kansas, I've calculated the precise amount of beans fed to cattle to produce the correct results.
Call me a nut, but I farm beans and raise cattle and manufacture my "special feed" sold at cost around the state. It is a Holy thing to bring the masses to the rental property.I cite the "Surfi-ism" lectures by St. Lex of the Luthoran Church. " Upon this rock, I build my church", the rock of course, being Kryptonite.
Stay tuned for more puzzling evidence.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
FItting an arbitrary model with many degrees of freedom to one data set? yeah extrapolation is worrisome.
Extrapolating consequences of fundamental microscopic laws of physics interlinked and verified by millions of experiments and observations over a century of human civilization? No other extrapolation in the known human world is as useful or as secure.
The sun and/or moon in their various cycles can effect the tides on Earth, but they have no effect on changes in the climate?
I'm going to use it to convince a primitive culture that my God has eaten the sun
So just like AGW, only convincing people to give you money directly to save them from the doom you insist is real, instead of proxying funds through the government first.
It's always good to cut out the middle man.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Nothing like using an unusually high tide to scare people about global warming, even though ocean levels are now predicted to rise something like 4" over 100 years (NOT four feet as the government website sadly parrots) ... the variance of a good spring tide can be more than that.
It's just really sad to see people conned in the name of science.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It would be easier to point out the sections that are factually correct than what is wrong with the NIPCC report. To be generous it probably wouldn't take more than a paragraph or two.
"Climate change" is natural cycles, not caused by humans. NIPCC report is at http://nipccreport.com/
The report from the NIPCC ("Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change") is a piece of trash propaganda from the libertarian Heartland Institute. To confuse people, It was released just two weeks prior to the IPCC report ("International Panel on Climate Change", a board of U.N. climate experts). The real IPCC report is at http://www.ipcc.ch/.
Hey, asking citizens to just get out their cameras and document how a king tide affects their properties is fine with me. That's cheap, easy, and makes sense. Sure beats questionable schemes like carbon "taxes".
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
Actually, the correct expression is "get out in front". It means to act before a bad thing happens and start mitigating the consequences before they occur (which may not quite get to the gist of the meaning). The best way to describe what this idiom means is to use the type of events from which it derived. The term derives from the idea of the best way to deal with a run away horse or horse drawn carriage. The best way is to get out in front of it and either get control of it, or, if that is not possible, divert it to where it will do the least damage.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Somehow, Maryland is going to tax its citizens for the rising tide.
The State is already taxing its citizens for rain.
Maryland State Motto: If you can dream it, we can tax it.
For some data in supporting change in the range of 4 inches, consider:
- Wikipedia's chart shows that the change in sea level for the past hundred years has been 6 inches. This chart comes from from the US EPA.
There is no evidence that the rate of sea level rise is increasing. Sea level rose rapidly after then end of the last ice age; since then it has been levelling off since. Even IPCC states recently published estimates of sea level rise over the last decades remain within the range of the TAR values (i.e., 1–2 mm yr–1). One to two mm per year equates to 4-8 inches per century.
Values above this range can be - and are - produced by models. Models can say anything, depending on the assumptions baked into them. In this case, the assumptions must be questioned carefully, since there is no evidence of an increase in sea level change.
... as they would be any new moon. Sure, the sun and moon aren't precisely aligned in the sky, but they are still in the same general direction. Would the precise angle make *THAT* much of a difference in height?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
This particular eclipse happens near perigee, as the Moon nears its closest approach to the Earth. This does make for a king tide, a high tide that is significantly higher than other spring tides. Also the Earth is coming up on perihelion in a few weeks, as parent post states, when it is at its closest approach to the Sun. That will also push the tide higher.
Except that the new moon in December is even closer to lunar perigee. The December new moon is one day away from lunar perigee, while this new moon is three days off.
In January, we get perigee and the new moon at the same time, with perihelion only three days off. This is probably the highest tide of all, although the moon is slightly further inclined off the sun-Earth line. In any case, though, the point is that there really isn't a significance to the eclipse-- an eclipse isn't really much different in tides.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
yes, editing would be nice here...
Strike that. Reverse it.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
If it only takes a paragraph or two, indulge us. I'm sure world hunger can be boiled down to half a page.
It is also worth noting that the Heartland institute and many of these same players once shilled for the tobacco industry - downplaying the link between smoking and lung cancer. Once that well dried up they found clients in the fossil fuel industry. Their climate change report focuses on the 3% of papers that they consider favourable to their position and ignores the vast literature on the subject. By cherry picking they are able to paint a rosier picture than those who consider the full body of scientific evidence.
No. Because the tidal bulge of water on the Earth's surface leads (mental check ... yes, leads) the sub-lunar point by a substantial degree as the bulge is dragged to the east by the rotation of the Earth relative to the Moon and the Sun (that's why both Moon and Sun rise in the east, unlike on Mars where one moon rises in the east and one (the faster-orbiting one) rises in the west.
The degree of lead varies with roughness of the seabed and coast profile and lots of other things, but it's why high tide isn't at exactly the same time all along a line of longitude. (Not that the Moon's orbit is precisely equatorial to the Earth's either, which would make astronomy relatively boring.)
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"