Earth's Orbit Reshapes Sea Floor

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Earth's Orbit Reshapes Sea Floor

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday December 25, 2013 @10:01PM from the shape-of-things dept.

sciencehabit writes "Earth's orbital variations—the wobbling and nodding of the planet on its rotational axis and the rhythmic elongation of the shape of its orbit—can affect the shape of the sea floor, according to new research. Scientists already knew that orbital variations, which are driven by gravitational interactions among solar system bodies, pace the comings and goings of the ice ages by shifting where sunlight falls on Earth. Now, researchers have shown in a computer model that those pressure variations should vary the amount of mantle rock that melts kilometers beneath midocean ridges. That, in turn, would vary the amount of ocean crust that solidifies from the melted rock, changing the thickness of new crust by as much as a kilometer as it slides down either side of a midocean ridge. And the group found that indeed, on the Juan de Fuca Ridge offshore of the Pacific Northwest, the ocean floor is grooved like a vinyl LP record in time with Earth's orbital variations of the past million years."

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The big question is... by EvilSS · 2013-12-25 22:07 · Score: 2, Insightful

How can I use this to continue to deny global warming is caused by man? Cable-news fed minds want to know!

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I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
1. Re:The big question is... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-25 23:06 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Assuming you don't mean Michelle, I am willing to bet that Obama won't win the election in 2016.
2. Re:The big question is... by Mashiki · 2013-12-25 23:50 · Score: 1
  
  That's easy, you take the holy word of the IPCC unto thyself and join it's church.
  
  --
  Om, nomnomnom...
3. Re:The big question is... by AlanS2002 · 2013-12-26 00:40 · Score: 1, Funny
  
  You're certainly displaying quite a bit of butt hurt. Do you do that every time your side doesn't win at something?
  
  --
  Not all conservatives are stupid,
  but it is true that most stupid people are conservative.
  - Hume
4. Re:The big question is... by oodaloop · 2013-12-26 00:44 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  On the one side is the overwhelming majority of the world's climate scientists (97% agree with anthropogenic climate change) who have repeatedly gone back and re-evaluated the data with the same conclusion, and on the other are people who want to keep consuming and polluting to their heart's delight with nary shred of scientific evidence to back up their claims that everything is hunky dory. Which side sounds more like a church again?
  
  --
  Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
5. Re:The big question is... by Eunuchswear · 2013-12-26 00:56 · Score: 1
  
  No, only when they're beaten (repeatedly) by a Ni-clang.
  
  --
  Watch this Heartland Institute video
6. Re:The big question is... by Urkki · 2013-12-26 01:00 · Score: 2
  
  You can't, because it's PROOF of global warming, because everything is.
  Funny thing about real world natural science is, pretty much everything affects pretty much everything. So if AGW is really happening, then comparing against pretty much anything that has happened in Earth's history should be consistent with that. Past climate changes have had their causes, and assuming we have not missed remains of pre-human industrial civilization, these causes should be different than a civilization returning "fossil" carbon to atmosphere. On the other hand, current climate change should look like it is because of returning fossil carbon to atmosphere by us.
  Now, what does it look like to you?
7. Re:The big question is... by arpad1 · 2013-12-26 01:51 · Score: 2
  
  I'm a bit unclear on how this scientific consensus works.
  What if the percentage of the world's climate scientists who agree with anthropogenic global warming were lower? Would they still be right? Say, if the percentage were 50%? Would that still establish anthropogenic global warming as scientifically valid?
  Where's the cut-off exactly?
  
  --
  Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
8. Re:The big question is... by oodaloop · 2013-12-26 02:07 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  A 50/50 split would give me pause for concern. I'd have to wonder if we really knew what what was going on. 50% on one side, with the remaining 50% split among 30 competing theories would be slightly better, but I'd still be cautious. An overwhelming majority (97% in this case) leads to me be believe that we're on the right track. I look at it this way. There's a right answer out there somewhere. Did 97% miss the mark, and some tiny minority actually figure it out? It's not that they all agree that makes it right, it's that there's so little argument over the big picture: we're contributing to climate change. Frankly, I don't see how we could cut down the number of trees we are and NOT affect the climate, just from that, but hey what do I know?
  
  --
  Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
9. Re:The big question is... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-26 02:30 · Score: 1
  
  link
  You are then a denier. The 97% figure is a lie, it creates positions for scientists that don't exist. The link shows how when scientists who are part of that 97% agreed, they said they did not.
  Don't repeat lies that EVERYONE else knows is a lie.
10. Re:The big question is... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-26 02:43 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  When in the hell will I actually see an on-topic comment?
11. Re:The big question is... by CODiNE · 2013-12-26 04:18 · Score: 2
  
  It's like peeing in a pool. A few kids do it and nobody notices... but once EVERYBODY is doing it you'll want to stay out of that water.
  I guess the denialists have larger pools than most of us.
  
  --
  Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
12. Re:The big question is... by blindseer · 2013-12-26 05:51 · Score: 1
  
  I can make a simplistic, and wrong, false dichotomy too. On one hand we have the watermelons, green environmentalists on the outside but red communists on the inside. They don't want to save the environment as much as make government bigger so they can tell us what kind of light bulbs and toilets we can buy. These are busybodies that like to tell other people what to do because they think they are the smartest people on Earth.
  On the other hand we have the actually smart people. We have people that just want to be left alone so that they can actually solve the world's problems without having to get buried in government red tape to do it. People that want to do research in things like new batteries, light bulbs, nuclear reactors, and solar panels but can't because they might disturb the natural habitat of some unheard of fish that most everyone thinks of as either a nuisance or bait.
  The truth is more complex than your dichotomy and mine but we both have an element of truth to them. There is not two sides to this debate as this is too complex of an issue to boil down to two sides.
  Of course 97% of climate scientists agree that human activity is causing global warming, that's practically the definition of a "climate scientist". If a "climate scientist" speaks up too loudly about how humans are NOT destroying the earth then they get shunned and can't call themselves "climate scientists" any more. I'm reminded of a "climate scientist" that thought wood farming was a great way to sequester carbon but he or she was effectively silenced after that, nobody would talk to him/her any more about the theory since we can't have people advocating we cut down trees. The fact that more trees would be planted than cut down was lost on people. Cutting down trees would be heresy.
  Yep, "climate science" sounds like a church to me. But then just about everyone can be framed to look like they are worshiping a false god if their argument is simplified to the point of being a lie.
  
  --
  I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
13. Re:The big question is... by snakeplissken · 2013-12-26 08:42 · Score: 1
  
  Their preoccupation with men's asses is peculiar. I suppose it goes toward the axiom that a man talks about what he thinks about.
  self-awareness not your thing then?
14. Re:The big question is... by Alsee · 2013-12-26 09:59 · Score: 1
  
  No, they have the same size pools.
  They just have really small bladders.
  -
  
  --
  - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
15. Re:The big question is... by blue+trane · 2013-12-26 11:35 · Score: 1
  
  America's never symbolized what you're thinking it has. Thomas Jefferson was denounced as being a Jacobin, wanting to take away everyone's property to give it to the poor. And yet he wrote the Declaration of Independence! America has always had an active, radical left.
16. Re:The big question is... by Lord+Lemur · 2013-12-27 07:46 · Score: 1
  
  And Obama is a Neo-Conservitive it practice, but a moderate-liberal when he speaks. He's subsidizing private for profit bussiness on an unprecidented scale. It has the unfortunate side effect of getting some additional people access to health insurance, and possibly healthcare. He has continued and expanded Bush II's WoT.
  He's a neo-con. America has never symbolized what he stands for.
  But atleast he wasn't Romney. I prefer my facist corprate shills to not be religious nutballs as well.
17. Re:The big question is... by blue+trane · 2013-12-27 10:24 · Score: 1
  
  And Jefferson talked about state's rights and free speech and limiting the power of the central government, but he bought Louisiana on his own authority and started prosecuting journalists:
  
  Callendar's numerous exposes caused one of the most avid supporters of the First Amendment to secretly metamorphose into a prosecutor of the freedom of the press. Jefferson, the foremost advocate of man's right to freedom of speech and press, gradually transformed into its private enemy, urging state officials to accuse members of the press of sedition by the end of his second term.
  http://www.monticello.org/library/pdfs/Elon2005Keough.pdf
Story at 11 by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-25 23:01 · Score: 3, Insightful

The article is a little short on details. It's actually completely missing any details whatsoever. As far as we know this is nothing but wild speculation, it could just as easily be said that they are the result of an impact event or the remains of a giant alien LP record that got melted into the crust.
1. Re:Story at 11 by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-26 01:28 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  ... the remains of a giant alien LP record that got melted into the crust.
  Whatever you do, DO NOT PLAY IT BACKWARDS!
2. Re:Story at 11 by cellocgw · 2013-12-26 01:41 · Score: 2
  
  it could just as easily be said that they are the result of an impact event or the remains of a giant alien LP record that got melted into the crust.
  There's no chance of that: aliens never bothered to go past 78s. However, we do know that the undulations are a part of the work of the Trafalmadorian robot on Titan, and had we been able to place a large-enough tonearm and stylus, we could have received his message without having to travel all the way to Titan.
  
  --
  https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
3. Re:Story at 11 by PPH · 2013-12-26 04:42 · Score: 1
  
  a giant alien LP record
  This might explain Louie Louie and why Washington State nearly voted to make it the state song.
  
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  Have gnu, will travel.
Re:Misleading Headline by a_n_d_e_r_s · 2013-12-26 00:14 · Score: 2, Insightful

Its a very sad state in the world that any article - even those who not even talk about global warmning - get dragged into that flame war by the deniers.

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Just saying it like it are.
TL;DR by srussia · 2013-12-26 01:24 · Score: 1

Its a very sad state in the world that any article - even those who not even talk about global warmning - get dragged into that flame war by the deniers.
The obligatory http://xkcd.com/1022/ would have sufficed.

--
Set your phasers on "funky"!
Re:Misleading Headline by BlueStrat · 2013-12-26 01:35 · Score: 1

Its a very sad state in the world that any article - even those who not even talk about global warmning - get dragged into that flame war by the deniers.
So you're saying that the sarcasm-dripping very first post under this article by EvilSS...

The Big Question Is...
How can I use this to continue to deny global warming is caused by man? Cable-news fed minds want to know!
...Was a "denier" post?
Do you have a pair of the peril-sensitive as well as the reality-distorting type?
And most humorous of all, a post that is pure flamebait and just plain wrong is modded "+5 Insightful"?
Priceless.
And people wonder why the aliens haven't made contact.
Strat

--
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Re:Misleading Headline by djmurdoch · 2013-12-26 01:48 · Score: 1

More likely the GP was replying to the post he replied to.
Kinda cool by unixcorn · 2013-12-26 01:56 · Score: 1

So while this researcher's theories are new and different, how does this information help us as humans? Can we now predict the next ice age? Is there something we can do to change Earth's perturbations?
1. Re:Kinda cool by DarwinSurvivor · 2013-12-31 12:00 · Score: 1
  
  What they've done is found another source of historical data that may be able to shed light on things we haven't yet been able to figure out. For instance, large impacts (say from meteorites) could possibly cause enough of a change in these "grooves" to give us more accurate time-lines of things like the end of the dinosaurs. Tectonic plate activity may also be recorded in the grooves. And I'm sure some very smart person in the future will study these grooves and discover something nobody had even considered before.
Re:Misleading Headline by Capt+James+McCarthy · 2013-12-26 02:10 · Score: 1

Its a very sad state in the world that any article - even those who not even talk about global warmning - get dragged into that flame war by the deniers.
I think sarcasm would be more appropriate then denier. You know, humor.
Of course it could also be a reaction to past performances of science chicken little prognostications.

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There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
17 year pause by geoffrobinson · 2013-12-26 04:14 · Score: 2

You take the 17 year pause in global warming and then you look at how many of those 97% of scientists predicted it, and then you come to the conclusion that maybe people don't know all the thousands of variables and calculations needed to be so certain. No need to consider orbital variations when you have actual data and predictions that didn't come true to work with.

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Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
1. Re:17 year pause by Daniel+Dvorkin · 2013-12-26 04:59 · Score: 1
  
  You're a year or two ahead of schedule on your talking point. You're always supposed to say there's been no global warming for (YYYY-1998) years, where YYYY is the current year. The fact that 1998 was considerably warmer than both 1997 and 1999 has nothing to do with this, of course--it's just a coincidence that you're supposed to use that particular year as the baseline. Right now you're supposed to say there's been no global warming for 15 years. Since it's almost 2014, I suppose you could push things a bit and claim 16 years, but 17 years is right out at least until next Christmas.
  Of course, as of 2010 or so even this meme isn't actually true, but you know, if you're going to repeat fact-free arguments, you might want to be at least consistent about it.
  
  --
  The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Re:Misleading Headline by ColdWetDog · 2013-12-26 04:47 · Score: 1

And people wonder why the aliens haven't made contact.
What are you talking about? Dennis Rodman has been around for a while.

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Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
play the LP! by rubycodez · 2013-12-26 08:13 · Score: 1

let's digiize (sped up of course) that groove the same way people scan and digitize LP records, let's hear what the Sun sounds like to Earth