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NASA: Global Warming Is Now Changing How Earth Wobbles (go.com)

An anonymous reader writes: A new study from NASA finds global warming is shifting the way the Earth wobbles on its polar axis. Melting ice sheets are changing the distribution of weight on Earth, which has caused both the North Pole and the wobble, called polar motion, to change course. Since 1899, scientists and navigators have been accurately measuring the true pole and polar motion and for almost the entire 20th century they migrated a bit toward Canada. That migration has changed with this century -- now they're moving toward England, said study lead author Surendra Adhikari at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab. "The recent shift from the 20th-century direction is very dramatic," Adhikari said. NASA scientist and the study's co-author Eirk Ivins said, Greenland has lost on average more than 600 trillion pounds of ice a year since 2003 and that affects the way the Earth wobbles in a manner similar to a figure skater lifting one leg while spinning.

38 of 232 comments (clear)

  1. Shifting masses by Mike_Shane · · Score: 2

    I alway felt that oil extraction would have the same affect.

    1. Re: Shifting masses by pixelpusher220 · · Score: 2

      Learn some physics. The vast majority of ice is near the poles. When that melts now the weight is now more evenly distributed through the oceans. That's a large change in the position of mass. Also temps are risng faster at the poles than the rest of the planet.

      --
      People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people :-D
    2. Re:Shifting masses by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Water extraction would be much worse. It's shifting a resource from 30% of the surface to the other 70% of the surface. And it's done at a much higher rate than oil extraction. For example, in the year 2000 a total of 26 cubic kilometers of water was pumped from just the Ogallala aquifer alone. That amounts to around 450 million barrels a day - compared to around 90 million barrels a day of oil worldwide. And given the fact that water is 10-15% denser than oil - we have a mass shift of around 6:1 in favor of just the Ogallala aquifer water versus worldwide oil. Total water shift worldwide is probably closer to 60:1.

      --
      Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
    3. Re:Shifting masses by Curunir_wolf · · Score: 2, Interesting

      There is some ice spread around the world but the vast majority of it is located on Greenland and Antarctica. When ice there melts it leaves the vicinity and more or less spreads evenly around the globe through the global ocean.

      That's pretty telling, then, since the ice in Antarctica is actually expanding. It's only melting in Greenland.

      --
      "Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
      --- Jerry Garcia
    4. Re:Shifting masses by riverat1 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Sea ice has expanded around Antarctica (although not so much in 2015) but sea ice has no effect on gravity because it displaces an equal amount of water to its weight. And despite a recent paper about expanding ice on the East Antarctic ice sheet the GRACE satellites show that the ice sheet overall is losing mass.

    5. Re:Shifting masses by riverat1 · · Score: 2

      Water movement after the Japanese earthquake may have cause a short temporary wobble but it's the change in land elevation and position that the actual subduction zone slippage that may have caused a (relatively) permanent change in the Earth's rotation.

    6. Re:Shifting masses by riverat1 · · Score: 2

      Why not both?

    7. Re:Shifting masses by riverat1 · · Score: 2

      Did you notice the bolded "on" in dryeo's response. Sea ice is not "on" Antarctica but rather on the sea surrounding the continent. Also your story is a bit old. Antarctic sea ice set a record in 2014 but in 2015 it was around an average level. It remains to be seen how much more expansion if any it does.

  2. Simple answer shift masses. by MouseTheLuckyDog · · Score: 3, Funny

    Just setup massive garbage dumps and prisons on Greenland.

    Move all our garbage and prisoners there. The extra mass should rebalance things.

  3. Re:The earth's chucking a wobbly! by MightyMartian · · Score: 2

    Nothing will make the pseudo-skeptics change their minds. But it's irrelevant, when even major oil producers like Saudi Arabia are setting the stage for the post-oil world, they, like pseudo-skeptics in other areas, will just fade to background noise.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  4. Re:So does Earth Quakes by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Actually, if he pulled together data and published a research paper, he'd get chucked in the kook bin. Welcome to climate science.

    We chuck a lot of people in the kook bin, from vaccines-cause-autism whackjobs right up to those people who... well, invented vaccination. We've got a pretty bad track record for figuring out whose science is bullshit and whose is valid.

  5. Re:The earth's chucking a wobbly! by MightyMartian · · Score: 3, Insightful

    How is it a strawman? Particularly the latter point, that climatologists are compromised because they work by and large with government grants is brought up all the time as a counter to AGW research. For chrissakes, that claim is trotted by pseudo-skeptics in fields like geology, evolution, and cancer research.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  6. Re:The earth's chucking a wobbly! by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 2, Funny

    We encourage the cost-effective development of renewable energy, but the taxpayers should not serve as venture capitalists for risky endeavors. It is important to create a pathway toward a market-based approach for renewable energy sources and to aggressively develop alternative sources for electricity generation such as wind, hydro, solar, biomass, geothermal, and tidal energy. Partnerships between traditional energy industries and emerging renewable industries can be a central component in meeting the nation’s long-term needs. Alternative forms of energy are part of our action agenda to power the homes and workplaces of the nation.

    - GOP 2012 Platform

    Oh those terrible, terrible Republicans and their hatred towards renewable energy! Oh wait...

    As far as your other strawmen, they're not even addressed in the 2012 platform. Don't know where you got the GOP position - for or against - on any of those. Other than projection, or perhaps some left-wing whacko website?

    --
    Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
  7. Re:The earth's chucking a wobbly! by riverat1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Of course that is what a lot of us that are being called "denialist", which just FYI is an regressive term designed to shut down discussion by comparing anybody that doesn't buy magic beans to Holocaust deniers, ...

    It's the climate science deniers that are trying hard to make the link between denial in general and Holocaust denial specifically so they can look like a persecuted minority.

  8. Nothing to worry about? by trenobus · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The article says it's nothing to worry about. Well that's what they said to Jor-El, and you know how that turned out.

    The shift in mass distribution caused by melting ice will cross the boundaries of tectonic plates, changing the relative pressure on adjacent plates. This will likely lead to increased earthquake and volcanic activity. On the bright side, the ash from the volcanoes may limit global warming (maybe even trigger an ice age), and deformations of the sea floor may reduce sea level rise (or make it worse). Another possible impact is the triggering of a geomagnetic reversal.

    The political debates about climate change are futile. What we should be discussing is whether we know enough about how this planet works (and have the technology) to attempt some kind of active intervention, such as carbon sequestration or actually blocking sunlight from space. But we'll probably just end up fighting over whatever habitable parts of the planet remain. Maybe the survivors will be wiser.

    1. Re:Nothing to worry about? by Livius · · Score: 3, Funny

      I can't imagine why they thought there was any point in telling Jor-El about the ice in Greenland, but it's no surprise he didn't have anything constructive to add.

    2. Re:Nothing to worry about? by phantomfive · · Score: 2

      But we'll probably just end up fighting over whatever habitable parts of the planet remain.

      Wow, what sort of disaster exactly are you expecting to happen?

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  9. Re:The earth's chucking a wobbly! by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Informative

    The 2012 GOP platform clearly endorses alternative, renewable energy.

    And by "endorse", I assume you mean, "doing everything they can to kill renewable energy".

    http://usuncut.com/news/solarc...

    http://www.scholarsstrategynet...

    https://newrepublic.com/articl...

    http://mic.com/articles/130336...

    Plus, both of the leading GOP candidates for president, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, are climate deniers.

    https://youtu.be/J_xVWfGjk0o

    https://youtu.be/KyulquUwi1Q

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  10. Re:You just wait and see... by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 2

    We'll go spinning off into space like in Space:1999. The oxygen will snow down to the ground and we'll all live in tiny hovels shoveling oxygen snow onto the fire.

  11. Re:The earth's chucking a wobbly! by riverat1 · · Score: 2

    Of course that is what a lot of us that are being called "denialist", which just FYI is an regressive term designed to shut down discussion by comparing anybody that doesn't buy magic beans to Holocaust deniers, ...

    It's the climate science deniers that are trying hard to make the link between denial in general and Holocaust denial specifically so they can look like a persecuted minority.

    Really? What are you on? I want some...

    Well, I live in Oregon where weed is legal now. ;)

    But seriously denial is a perfectly good word and to try and associate it only with Holocaust denial takes away from its meaning. As Mark Twain said before there was ever a Holocaust "Denial ain't just a river in Egypt."

  12. Re:Is there nothing... by HiThere · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Depends on what you're measuring. If you're measuring rainfall, it's climate change. If you're measuring temperature it's global warming. And, of course, newspapers are notorious for abusing the language. Consider the term "hacker".

    Actually, it could always be climate change, but calling it global warming when you're talking about rainfall is just confusing.

    --

    I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
  13. Re:You just wait and see... by HiThere · · Score: 2

    Actually, that's one of the benefits of the moon. It contributes to gyroscopic stability. There's even a school that claims any planet that's going to have successful life needs to have a large moon to prevent gyroscopic tumbling killing everything off. I don't know how good their claims are, and I've never tried to check their math, but it's not totally unreasonable.

    --

    I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
  14. Re:Dramatic shift? Nothing like magnetic reversal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Bzzzzzzt.

    The Sun dumps visible light on Earth, which is absorbed, and re-radiated at a lower wavelength. The atmosphere is mostly transparent to visible light, and CO2 does squat to it. The atmosphere is opaque to IR pretty much to the edge of space; the "top of atmosphere" is where a given photon has a higher chance of being released to space instead of being captured and re-radiated. The effect of CO2 is not to increase the opacity of the lower atmosphere, which is already saturated with H2O and CO2, but to push the CO2-rich layer further out into space.

    You clearly know fuck-all about atmospheric physics. Why are you commenting?

  15. Re:The earth's chucking a wobbly! by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Informative

    Use a market-based approach to developing renewables

    Sure, just as soon as we use a "market-based approach" to fossil fuels, instead of providing taxpayer subsidies that dwarf those for renewables.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  16. Re:PUTTING ALL THE POLITICS ASIDE: by Kernel+Kurtz · · Score: 2

    How, precisely, does this change in the Earth's dynamics affect things...

    Obviously we are all gonna die.

  17. Re:The earth's chucking a wobbly! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    In that case, stop the subsidies to oil companies in the form of production and exploration tax subsidies. That would save the USA tax payer $37.5 billion a year. The argument that it saves jobs can't be used if it can't be used with renewable energy sources.

    http://priceofoil.org/fossil-fuel-subsidies/

  18. Re:The earth's chucking a wobbly! by Hylandr · · Score: 2

    This went from 'dumb as fuck' to politics in .00314 seconds.

    If it's not Godwins Law it's this whenever the weather is mentioned anymore.

    --
    ~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
  19. Re:The earth's chucking a wobbly! by religionofpeas · · Score: 2

    taxpayers shouldn't play the role of venture capitalist

    Some projects don't lend themselves to market capital funding. Take the interstate freeway system, for example. Clearly, the network offers a good profit to the economy and to the taxpayers who funded it, but it's not something that the free market can do well.

  20. Re:Is there nothing... by religionofpeas · · Score: 2

    Wait....isn't it climate change now?

    It's been climate change for a while now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

  21. Re: The earth's chucking a wobbly! by religionofpeas · · Score: 2

    it was Dr. James Hansen who, in 1988, claimed the NY West Side Highway would be underwater by now

    No, he didn't. https://www.skepticalscience.c...

  22. Re:The earth's chucking a wobbly! by sumdumass · · Score: 2, Interesting

    That's because this was political from the start almost. Back in the 80s when the activist wanted to warn congress, then senator Timothy Wirth (or is it Worth ) set out to find the historically hottest day in Washington D.C. and scheduled the hearing to coincide. He then had staffers flip the breakers on the AC the night before for effect when activist James Hansen and friends made their presentation.

    Fast forward to the Kyoto protocol. This was in the works when there were groups like Jubilee2000 who were arguing for the first world countries to forgive the third world debt created in the 80s to develop their oil infrastructure after the opec embargo caused havoc. Along comes the Kyoto protocol and out of 157 original countries, only 37 had any carbon limits and 2 or 3 of them had limits well above their then values so they could build up to the limits in the future. But here is the real political story, a country could avoid their limits by moving production and infrastructure off shore to countries without the limits. They could also purchase carbon credits from countries that have managed to be under their limits. But furthermore it set requirements for technology transfers to many of these third world countries. It was as if carbon emissions was not the issue but lack of development in these third world countries. Now this Kyoto protocol was born in 1997 (actually it started birth two years prior but was a final draft to be ratified in 97) and almost as soon as it was being offered, the third world debt cries almost became invisible. Groups like Jubilee2000 stopped having large rallies and all but disappear by 99.

    There has been politics and conspiracy associated with climate change since the beginnings. There is no real reason why that would disappear just because the evidence is more strong today or that more people are believers today. Most modern believers don't know the background of this and those who do want to forget it.

  23. Re:The earth's chucking a wobbly! by Hognoxious · · Score: 2

    I'm still trying to work out if Adam and Eve had bellybuttons.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  24. Re: The earth's chucking a wobbly! by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 2

    I'm not sure what surprises you here. The amount of CO2 that is claiming to be the problem is about 120 parts per million. (The difference between current levels of 400ppm and the levels at the beginning of the industrial revolution at 280ppm) That would be 0.012% or .0012 units that make up the atmosphere. It gets even smaller if you consider the 1990 baseline used for most of the countries that had limits under the Kyoto protocol.

    And the amount of radiative forcing is a mere 1.6 Watts per Square meter, hardly enough to be worried about. Until you figure that is 800 Terawatts of radiative forcing. You figure the atmosher is a black hole, where all goes in, and none comes out?

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  25. Re:So does Earth Quakes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    How is this insightful? We have an excellent track record for determining the correct theories. Look at all the new technologies that have been developed since the beginning of the 20th century. That is the result of engineering based on the scientific discoveries that have been made.

    The public's opinion is vulnerable to greedy assholes with huge media corporations pushing their agenda to the detriment of every person on earth and especially to those not even yet born. It is sad that such large swaths of people can be turned into shills against their own interest and be totally ignorant of the fact for so long.

    The oil and gas industry's tactics are the same as when they perpetrated the leaded gas abomination.

  26. Re: The earth's chucking a wobbly! by religionofpeas · · Score: 2

    The problem is that only scientists are interested in the carefully worded science. The rest of the world wants short and dramatic headlines, and the journalist will keep asking the scientists for juicy quotes, or will just reword the original themselves. Even in this case where the scientist is talking about a 40 year period and a doubling of CO2, and I showed a link where this is all explained, you still come back with the idea that he claimed that the West Side Highway would be underwater by now. If you're interested in rational science, you should read popular press with suspicion. Always. And before you argue about it, you should find the original source, and read that.

  27. Re: The earth's chucking a wobbly! by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2

    I wish you would tour the dreaded Republican States. Hydropower, windpower, solar power, all popping up

    That's because they tell you yahoos one thing and do another for themselves. The corporations, like Exxon, who have spent the most time and money trying to discredit climate scientists are the very ones who are planning their corporate future based on climate change being real.

    Face it, you're being had.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  28. Re: So does Earth Quakes by medv4380 · · Score: 2

    The only attention it gets is 'You're just like Holocaust deniers, and all these other scientists can't possibly be wrong'. Any journal publishing it would get tossed into the discredited journals leaving only discredited journals as my only publishing option. If you personally want to see the data I can point you at it. But I'm not impressed with science breaking Godwin's law whenever it gets brought up.

  29. Re:This doesn't pass the laugh test by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 2

    It is neither.

    It is about removing the power from the super rich, thats all.

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.