Posted on 06/27/2007 9:25:09 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
The earth wobbles in space... and thanks to global positioning system (GPS) technologies, this wobble has been tracked with a precision of a few millimeters over the last decade... Geoff Blewitt, University of Nevada research geophysicist, has an explanation for this mysterious geo-wobble. "The theory, which my colleagues and I have proven using GPS observations of the Earth, is that it's likely to be caused by the surface matter being redistributed..." To make the Earth wobble, large amounts of mass need to be moved from one place to another so that the Earth is "off balance," according to NASA-funded researcher Blewitt, who said the North Pole then adjusts to a new position to compensate. Large amounts of water are displaced seasonally when glaciers and ice sheets melt in spring, for example. The mass shifts back when they refreeze in winter. "We measured the earth's shape directly," he said. "It agrees with the wobble. What our measurements are showing is that everything is consistent the earth is wobbling while it's changing its shape," he said. "The Earth isn't a perfect sphere," Blewitt noted. "It bulges at the equator because it's spinning. If the position and height of that bulge changes slightly even a few millimeters we can pick it up."
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
Most Changes In The Earth's Shape Are Tied To Climate SwingsResearchers at The University of Texas at Austin have found that significant changes in the shape of the Earth in the past 28 years may be linked to climate events such as the El Nino weather pattern... The Earth's shape changes because the climate events shift where the mass of water is stored: in oceans, continents and the atmosphere. Dr. Minkang Cheng and Dr. Byron D. Tapley of the university's Center for Space Research used nearly 30 years of NASA satellite laser ranging (SLR) data to examine how much the Earth flattens at the poles and widens at the equator... The scientists found that two large variations of increases in the Earth bulging at the equator were connected to the strong El Nino-Southern Oscillation events from 1986-1991 and 1996-2002... Similar to El Nino, but lasting 20 to 30 years instead of months, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation is a long-term temperature fluctuation in the Pacific Ocean. The oscillation also brings changes in the location of the cold and warm water masses that also alter the path of the jet stream, which moves storms around the world... Cheng and Tapley found that the variations in mass, which caused the change in the gravity field, were predominantly over the continents, with a smaller contribution due to changes over the ocean.
Science Daily
January 10, 2005Rhythmic Submarine Volcanos And El NinosThe real cause of El Ninos is still obscure. However, the recent discovery of over 1,000 previously unmapped submarine volcanos rising from the seafloor in the eastern Pacific may lead to El Nino's source. The synchronous eruption of, say, 100 of these volcanos might warm the ocean around Easter Island a tad -- just enough to warm the atmosphere above a bit -- resulting in a shift of the high pressure area.
by William Corliss
Science Frontiers #89
Sep-Oct 1993
Earth’s Internal Heat Keeps Continents Afloat
The Associated Press | June 27, 2007 | Derrick Hasterok
Posted on 06/27/2007 9:52:00 AM EDT by george76
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1857036/posts
The ‘wobble’ that wipes out life on Earth every 2.5m years
The Daily Mail | October 12, 2006 | JULIE WHELDON
Posted on 10/12/2006 2:43:56 AM EDT by MadIvan
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1717922/posts
Chandler’s Wobble Causes Earthquakes, Volcanism, El Nino, and Global Warming
Michael Wells Mandeville | 2004 | Michael Wells Mandeville
Posted on 01/18/2005 11:58:05 PM EST by IGBT
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1323583/posts
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the world wobbles because Rosie is on one side of it.
Lies, lies, lies...
Everyone knows it’s BUSH’S FAULT!
New way to the center of Earth ( Global Warming )
Astronomy Magazine | June 13, 2007 | NASA/JPL
Posted on 06/17/2007 7:29:50 PM EDT by festus
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1851841/posts
The Earth turns out to be, not Gaia, but a giant Weeble.
Sorry - I’ll try to sit still.
That'll do wonders for her self-esteem. Some people should think before they speak. The next wobble will be the earth sobbing quietly in the bathroom. And the one after that will be liposuction.
I take it the Earth will soon cease wobbling due to global warming? Whatever will we do without the comforting rumble of an uneven rotation?
Does the earth’s rotation only become unbalanced when Michael Moore and Rosie O’Donnell are in the same city?
Superman digs a mammoth hole at the South Pole and fills it with scrap metal from junk yards and when that is insufficient he fills the rest of the hole with meteors and small asteroids.
In the end the Earth's wobble is cured, just like a small metal clete is used to balance a car tire, (so says the story writer in the final block of the strip), and mankind is saved by SUPERMAN!
Are we sure that this scientific snippet isn't brought to us by AlsGorge?
They’d get swallowed by Mammoth Cave, one of my proposed “must see” sites.
...it’s likely to be caused by the surface matter being redistributed...
After reading this, the DNC immediately declared that in order to correct a wobbly economy, all INCOME must be redistributed, following Nature’s law.
If we want the earth to remain in perfect balance, I must now get permision from my antipodal doppelganger and persuade him to move in a compensating diection.
Great!
I have to cancel my haircut today?
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