Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog

Water in contact with land does not cause friction, because land and water are not moving relative to one another.

Inyo, not all science tends liberal - but as a group, intellectuals (which scientists are definetly among) tend liberal, both in all the polls and studies I've seen and in my own experience.

As far as the glaciers melting causing the earth to gain mass at the equator, your right on ~ it's refered to as pumpkin earth. Different thing affect the speed though, that bad tsunomi sped it up ever so slightly.

I agree that a lot of intellectuals tend liberal, one take might be that they are being 'indoctrined' but another take could be that smarter people just tend to be liberal :)

but on a more serious note, no, there is no way that melting glaciers are going to significantly affect the earth's movements relative to the sun or other planets. Keep in mind that huge ice sheets have covered the earth and melted back to nothing literally hundreds if not thousands of time in the earth's history. The earth didn't flip over, fly into the sun, or careen off into deep space any of those 100 times, why would it do it now?

There are tiny effects, i remember reading somewhere that all the dams on earth have changed the earth's rotation VERY slightly by moving mass around. however, i think most scientists agree that the effects of this are completely insignificant compared to volcanos, comets, solar fluxuations, natural variations in the earth's tilt, and levels of co2 in the atmosphere.

the earth is naturally slowing down in rotation, i think in the earth's history the day's length has increased by a couple of hours. However, the sun will go nova and incinerate the earth far before the effects of the rotation slowing would make a difference.

Also, since no orbit is truly stable, the moon will eventually either fall onto the earth or careen off into space. However, again, this will be long after the sun is gone and the earth is a cold, empty rock.

Cyclone it's all relative terms, an ice skater with their arms out has a diameter of say 6feet arms in 2feet, hense the large change in spin.

I don't think the ice melting will add another 16,000 miles of extra diameter.

Pony was agreeing it would affect the spin speed but only by a tiny amount

You're right in most aspect Inyo. The melting of ice is going to have a neglibible effect on the Earth. It's happened before, it will happen again, and without any consequences on the orbit or rotation of the Earth.

I haven't heard about the dams having an effect on the Earth, but it would make sense. Just like the Indian Ocean Tsunami increased the day length by like 1/4 second or even less.

Also the Earth has slowed down by a factor of 6. The Earth originaly spun so fast that a day took about 4 hours according to a study I once read. Due to the pull of the moon and the sun, we have slowed down to 24 hours in a day in the last 4 billion years. I dont remember how much we're slowing down now, but we aren't slowing very fast.

A slower Earth isn't really a bad thing, anyways. If we adjusted the calander for it we'd be gaining time during the day, while having less days in a year, doesnt sound too bad to me. This will take millions of years though, so dont expect a calander change in our lifetimes.

I haven't heard about the dams having an effect on the Earth, but it would make sense. Just like the Indian Ocean Tsunami increased the day length by like 1/4 second or even less.

A lot less -- 2.68 microseconds, not 250,000. :-)

As far as polar ice mass being redistributed toward the equator, yes, there would be a measurable effect, but only because we're really good at measuring really small changes. I'm not up to doing a back-of-the-envelope calculation, but I think we're talking far less than a millisecond even if ALL the polar ice melts.

wow, four hour days, that must have been nuts. I wonder if convection was decreased due to less time in the sun, or if it just went all night. I guess back then the atmosphere wasnt in any way similar back then so who knows.

as for cyclonebuster, if i had any respect for your knowledge of physics or science in the past, it is gone now. If the tunnels are as well thought out as your 'theories' on the earth flipping over, they are a lost cause for sure.

I would appreciate a 2nd opinion on the imagery that I have collected here:

http://www.lermanet.com/antarcticmelt/

There appears to be substantial volcanism occurring along the transantarctic mountains near ross island. Email to alerma@verizon.net

thanks

arnie lerma