Antarctic Ice Loss Big Enough To Cause Measurable Shift In Earth's Gravity

An anonymous reader writes: Contrary to what we were sometimes taught in high school physics, the Earth's gravity is not constant. It actually shows slight variations on different parts of the Earth's surface, and the variations correlate with the density of the material on that surface. The European Space Agency has been measuring gravity for four years, mapping these variations and recording the changes those variations have undergone. Its data indicates "a significant decrease [in gravity] in the region of Antarctica where land ice is melting fastest. Further analysis is, of course, planned so that the whole of Antarctica can be taken into account and "the clearest picture yet of the pace of global warming" can be determined on that continent.

Comments

Re:"Contrary to what we were sometimes taught"

[timeOday]

More fundamentally, ALL equations are only approximations. They are just models of reality that fit well enough to suit the purposes, or as well as we can currently measure. The Laws of Physics are our current understanding of the truth, not the truth itself.

Re:Ugh...

[dave420]

1. Global warming = the world getting hotter
2. Climate change = the changes to the climate due to the increased amount of energy due to warming
3. The land ice is melting, causing it to flow into the sea, where some of it re-freezes. It is expected if warming occurs.
4. Volcanoes release between 65 and 319 million tonnes of CO2 per year. Industry releases ~29 billion tonnes per year. So it takes ~19 hours for industry to release as much CO2 as all the volcanoes do per year.

Maybe people will keep "banging the bell" until people like you actually learn what's happening. You suck as a conscientious individual.

Re:The last sentence in the summary...

[drinkypoo]

But what you can't argue against is the fact that the ice is melting at all, although that doesn't stop some people here from cherry-picking one particular type of ice (sea ice), saying that it has expanded as if that is the complete argument against the total ice loss.

It's worse than that. They're actually claiming that extent is counterevidence against loss of ice mass. Some of them don't even realize that's what they're claiming. Either way, this finding proves them wrong.