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.
Do you have a good link?
MEE TOO!!!!! A little shorter every DAY! That must be what this guy is talking about.
How did the earth ever make it without the IPCC for 4 billion years???
It just gets worser and worser.
This is just getting stupid now.
WTF? Where did this idiot get his degree from? On line maybe? Basic chemistry and Thermodamnastics, heat a gas and it expands. Thus the atmosphere does get thicker (surface to space distance) but not more massive.
Lunar tides have had a far greater effect for billions of years, and we don’t seem to get all worked up about that.
It is mathematically provable* that the mass migration northward of 20 million plus illegals has increased the earth’s rotational speed and shortened the length of the day due to increased rotational speed and increased viscous damping by the tides.
Why isn’t anybody worried about that? Maybe it’s a way we can stop illegal immigration - it causes global warming.
* OK, cynics - Conservation of Angular Momentum - as you move mass closer to the axis of rotation, the rotational velocity must increase. Remember in school (if you went before 1960) about skaters increasing their spin by pulling in their arms.
Yeah, me too. Colder as well. If this trend continues we'll be in a permanent ice age by next August. I got dibs on the mukluk franchise in Phoenix.
I notice that the poster put it under satire. And the link doesn’t work. But it’s the kind of thing that you aren’t surprised to read these days, and see touted as serious science, isn’t it?
I’m fat because of global warming.
Ding-Ding-Ding! We have a winner!
Yes, it’s satire, I wrote it and even the “author’s name” is subliminal satire.
More like Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels
“I have noticed that the days seem to have been getting shorter lately.”
The SW indians, Mayans, Egyptians and those Stonehenge dudes noticed it too. And one would think that with all the global warming/cooling in the last 2000 - 3000 years with the earth speeding up and slowing down all their markings and monuments would be pointed the wrong way and not lining up with the soltices (sp?) anymore. (But they do!)
Pretty good one at that! Remind me to hurt you later... :-)
Global warming THICKENS the atmosphere? Is thick the same as dense? I think it is and as a pilot I know warm air is less dense then cold air. So what the hell are these people talking about?
:-)
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