Scientists Say Global Warming Slows Earth's Spin

Duluth News Tribune ^ | 13 Feb 02 | Seth Borenstein

[r9etb]

This is a lie. The leap second is not added because the earth is slowing. It is added because the year is not excactly 365-1/4 days long. The leap second is to compensate.

Well, yes and no. Click here for a description of leap seconds.

The last leap second, BTW, was added in January, 1999 -- three years ago. By historical standards that's pretty long.

[KC_for_Freedom]

You don't find any supporting evidence in NASA's satellite records of global atmosphere temps.

No, but you do see that the "global warming" is laying down increasingly thicker ice and snow in the Antarctic. Satellite measurements are showing the build up, (which should not be happening in a warming climate anyway), but the extra mass is probably the real cause of the earth slowing down. (Note, that last comment was sarcasm, I think everything the Global Warming crowd comes up with is junk science and I refer them to "The Skeptical Enviornmentalist".

[CROSSHIGHWAYMAN]

Actually we could compensate for this by having people driving east all put on their brakes at the same time.

HAHA........very good.

How about Congress facing west during one session....same effect.

[johniegrad]

You're highly confused. The research came out of Belgium.

[cinFLA]

But if that takes too long, I'd be satisfied knowing that I could at least keep it up for a few more minutes.

Let's keep it clean? :)

[johniegrad]

Let's keep it clean? :)

I try to.

[MassLengthTime]

This is a lie. The leap second is not added because the earth is slowing. It is added because the year is not excactly 365-1/4 days long. The leap second is to compensate.

No, leap seconds are indeed added to civil clocks to account for the lengthening of the mean solar day caused by deceleration of the Earth's rotation due to tidal braking.

The last leap second adjustment was made on Jan 1 1999.

See USNO Leap Seconds for the excruciating details.

FWIW, there is currently a proposal to forego leap second corrections altogether, and let civil clocks drift with respect to the mean solar day.

[hgro]

More tripe from those European loonies who still are looking for a way to be relevent.

[Reeses]

Also, more rainwater is retained at higher elevations from man-made dams and lakes. This also would slow the earth, and possibly make it wobble because dams are not distributed evenly. As the earth slows we all weigh more because of less centrifugal force. Of course when all the icebergs melt from global warming the world will spin faster and we'll all float away.

[Khepera]

That would only work if they suddenly and in mass broke wind. Right now the hot gasses have been misdirected.

[Maceman]

How much pollution do we need to start going back in time?

[300winmag]

But all the windmills will slow the wind down, causing the solid Earth to speed up to conserve angular momentum. They forgot that.

The article said "the weight of the atmosphere was growing". Yet the number of atoms of carbon and oxygen on the planet is fixed, with none being created or destroyed, only redistributed. If the atmosphere is "getting heavier", the solid part of the planet is getting lighter.

Actually, earth gains weight with all the meteorites and space dust it sweeps up. Maybe the extra weight is what's causing that component of the slowing rotation. Most probably, there are enough observational and computational errors in the models that make this figure invisible among the statistical "noise".

[staytrue]

1.7 millionth of one second a year

if anyone care, this is about 30 minutes every billion years.

[syriacus]

Now that Hansen has decided the Earth will only warm as much as nature intended, the dreaded man-made gases are being blamed for a global slowdown.

NASA Extinguishes Global Warming Fire

NASA's James Hansen now predicts precisely the same, small amount of warming in the next 50 years that the much-derided "climate skeptics" predicted all along. According to both the skeptics and Mr. Hansen, the planet is destined for a mere 0.7 degree Centigrade (1.25 degree Fahrenheit) warming between now and 2050. It's a good thing "W" listened to those skeptics before he decided on Kyoto. If he had waited for NASA, he might have committed the United States down the road to an unwarranted economic disaster for no good reason.

[rboatman]

Ya Know, 300, I noticed that the days were getting longer the last month or so. But I had just attributed to seasonal changes. Maybe I was wrong. Now I am looking forward to having more time to get the yard chores done. I think I'll get the old gas-hog SUV out and make a few runs around the block and see if I can help this global warming thing along.

[RightWhale]

I assume they didn't waste any valuable supercomputer time on this back-of-the-envelope freshman physics calculation.

When will they add in the even bigger effect of the gradual accumulation of micrometeoroids to earth's mass?

[Centurion2000]

TOTAL BULLCR$P .....

[johniegrad]

Careful!! Sheep dip adds to the total warming effect. Your life could slow down to nothing.

[openotherend]

They should work on keeping Belgium waffles warmer longer. Then they'd really have something!

[First_Salute]

Global warming causes:

tooth decay

cold weather

recession

rust