Mysterious Shift in Earth's Gravity Suggests Equator is Bulging

space.com ^ | 1 Aug 02 | Robert Roy Britt

[RightWhale]

The oceans are rising near the equator and some of the islanders blame the industrialized West. But maybe their case is weakening as the earth gets less round.

[dirtboy]

Mysterious Shift in Earth's Gravity Suggests Equator is Bulging

Heck, my midsection is bulging as well, but I can only blame it on beer, not cosmic changes...

[SubMareener]

Earth changes are coming.

[mewzilla]

It's from all the fat people.

[r9etb]

On a more practical note, I'm wondering what the net effect is on gravity models.

Some space missions won't care much, but others such as GPS, and various black- and white-world earth observation missions, will probably care whole a lot.

[Dog Gone]

"The result is it looks as if post-glacial rebound has reversed itself. But, we do not have any reason to think that post-glacial rebound has in any way stopped or changed."

Hell no. We can't possibly challenge the religion of global warming.

[twntaipan]

I bet Algore or some other enviromentalist wacko comes out in a few days and attributes this to global warming caused by mean and evil humans.

[onedoug]

Isostatic resonance?

[RightWhale]

As far as GPS is concerned, they have picked a limited selection of spheroids and insist you use them. Some spheroids, they claim, are closer to the actual shape of the earth than the one you were using, which means you have to adjust their data to match your maps. Earth is very lumpy and the gravity field also, but if it is changing all the time in new ways, we have a lot of remodelling work ahead.

[dead]

The polar weightloss due to glacial melting has been offset by the gradual move away from the equator of Hillary Clinton.

[DoughtyOne]

I'm not knocking you or the article, but I do get amused when scientist release findings like these. It is interesting but all too often the perception of a need to extrapolate meaning from the data, means that we'll be hearing some hair-brained sky is falling tripe within the next few months. Either this will be tied to El Nino, La Nina, global warming, emissions or some new phenom that portends dire problems for the children. Can't we all just enjoy the data and "Get along"?

[troublesome creek]

all "outies" are gradually turning to "innies".

[r9etb]

The more I think about it, the more interesting it gets.

There hasn't been a leap second for four years, and none scheduled for December, either. That's more than twice as long as any other gap (they can be applied as often as every 6 months).

This phenomenon probably explains some of it. (As it likely explains the sudden flurry of symposia being held by the Earth Rotation and "fluid loading" geeks.)

[Reaganwuzthebest]

We know what this means, a whole new theory industry will rise that will attribute all the world's problems to the fact it's flattening out. Scientists will now have something new to sit around and pontificate about for decades.

And of course, you know they'll find a way to blame it all on the US.

[RedBloodedAmerican]

Well, all that water runoff from global warming melting the arctic is flowing underground and collecting at the equator ;)

[RedBloodedAmerican]

[GaltMeister]

Just like Wilhelm the Fornicator and Ted Kennedy, the earth is getting rounder.

[dead]

Not that they won't try, but I really think the enviro idiots are going to have a hard time blaming the reshaping of the globe's magnetic fields on man's burning of fossil fuels.

I mean the science editors at the NY Times will buy it, but not most thinking people.

[RedBloodedAmerican]

On second thought, maybe this one is better. Resembles Gore, doesnt it?

[RightWhale]

One plus for those who live in high latitudes, is that targeting of GPS guided bombs is very precise, but not at all accurate. They will miss your bunker by 420.04 feet. Those who are typing in coordinates for Saddam's cubicle are probably going slowly mad with the constant and variable shifts in random directions as the earth's gravity field meanders.