Besides that the article is satire. Got me too...
Posted on 11/16/2007 11:23:52 AM PST by Rb ver. 2.0
(ZURICH, SWITZERLAND) - Rising temperatures due to global warming could affect the most basic unit of measurement known to man - time, disrupting solar calculations that can be predicted centuries into the future.
"The basic premise is as the earth's temperature rises, the atmosphere thickens, gaining mass which will exert a measurable pressure upon the planetary axis of rotation", says Dr. Heimel Van Ulderwert of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zürich.
Dr. Van Ulderwert presented his theory today in a report issued at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and cautions that "although the calculations are sound we won't know exactly the extent this effect could have on world economies".
"As the Earth's atmosphere thickens it will act as an automobile brake slowing the axis rotation; Modern time keeping will not be affected", referring to clocks, "but culturally, this could significantly affect societies that rely on predicted, exact sunrise and sunset times in ceremonial and religous activities" Dr. Van Ulderwert said.
Other activities that could be affected are hunting and fishing in European countries where sunrise/sunset times are used to regulate when game and certain fish can be taken. "If the sunrise or sunset is delayed by a few minutes there may be instances where fish or game taken could legitimately be within the allowable time by virtue of the sun being visible, but would be considered poaching as the sunset or sunrise time would be inaccurate on the published tables", said Chance Hollings of the EU Directorate-General for Fisheries and Maritime Affairs office. "We will have to address these issues on a case by case basis as they happen", he added.
The issue isn't an increase in mass, but a shift in mass from closer to the axis to farther from the axis. Taking material from the Earth's crust and putting it in the atmosphere could, in theory, affect its rotational velocity.
(ObDisclaimer: I am not a physicist, I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, and if I'm talking about this stuff at the most elementary level, it's only because I understand it at the most elementary level.)
Every minute you drive a car or a bicycle, you're losing mass at the outer edge of the rotation and shifting the rim-to-axis ratio. And yet they keep spinning. And the speedometer remains pretty accurate. The dash panel on my Chrysler can't tell my my linear velocity in micrometers per nanosecond, but it's plenty accurate for my needs.
If your cultural practices are based on beginning at sunset, which is an imprecise time stamp at best, then a small shift in when the sun sets won't make any difference.
These ‘people’ are insane. My God what have we become as human beings if we are to fool ourselves into believing we can play the role of the almighty.
I thought changing to daylight savings time fixed that. Do you mean that I have to set my watch backward and forward every year for nothing! Rats!
“”The basic premise is as the earth’s temperature rises, the atmosphere thickens, gaining mass which will exert a measurable pressure upon the planetary axis of rotation”, says Dr. Heimel Van Ulderwert of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zürich.”
Wait, what? Law of conservation of mass, lol.
There is a gradual braking of the earth’s rotation rate caused by the Moon, which amounts to a lengthening of the rotation period by about 0.002 seconds per century. Angular momentum is transferred from the earth's rotation to the moon's orbit.
The worst the atmosphere could do is briefly store some angular momentum, but the peak effect would be minuscule and short lived.
Besides that the article is satire. Got me too...
LOL. CJ that's a great answer!
No, the recent leap second drought was attributed to exchange of angular momentum between the atmosphere and the earth's surface. The core can do the same thing. You'd expect the effect to be temporary.
Besides that the article is satire. Got me too...
It's no more silly than a lot of other run of the mill claims made about the effect of Global Warming.
Global Warming is extremely robust with respect to data, all observations confirm it with probability 1.0 and all things are predicted by it. It's the Nostradamus of scientific theories.
Before 1967, a second was measured as a fraction of the earths annual trip around the sun. How does any of this impact the travel of the earth around the sun in space?
It doesn't. The claimed change is in the revolution, not the orbit. That is, the Earth spinning slower or faster on its axis, not moving slower or faster around Ol' Sol.
Before 1967 the ISO second was defined as a specific fraction of tropical year 1900. (A tropical year is the interval between vernal equinoxes, which is not the same quite the thing as "a trip around the sun.") This was hardly a reproducible standard. Modern clocks could be compared to it using other astronomical clocks, the most precise of which was Newcombe's theory of lunar motion.
In 1958 the atomic clock was invented by Britain's National Physical Laboratory. Using satellite time synchronization, they worked with the U.S. Naval Observatory to establish the relationship between the Cesium clock and lunar motion. The value they determined was adopted as the ISO second in 1967.
Mean solar time, the basis of civil time, is based on the rotation of the earth. The exact relationship is complicated but you think of a second of mean solar time as approximately 1/86400 of the average interval between transits of the sun across the Greenwich (or any other) meridian. (The difference between solar transits and a uniform clock is called "the equation of time.")
The length of a day has been increasing by about 0.002 seconds per century compared to an atomic clock for as long as mankind has been around, so the length of the second of mean solar time keeps getting longer compared to an atomic second.
Angular momentum has to go somewhere. The interaction of the Moon and Earth is called tidal braking. The earth is actually kicking the moon into a higher orbit, with a smaller angular velocity but larger radius.
Tides don’t store significant angular momentum over long periods.
When in danger
Or in doubt
Run in circles,
Scream and shout!
NOT BAD...NOT BADD AT ALLL
one thing sure them libs got the chicken little/sky be fallin
market cornered....
The real problem arises with atomic clocks slowing relative to orbital ones.
A statement “frozen in time...”
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
You know how when you spin on a bar stool, and then stick out your hands or legs, you spin slower, and when you retract them you spin faster?
No, I’m not sure what that has to do with anything. Just a fun fact.
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