If you missed the big news maybe you felt it in your bones: The Earth’s spin has slowed enough to add a “leap second” to the end of 2008. The Associated Press story linked to above, however, fails to mention why Clock the Earth is spinning down. Turns out it’s all the fault of Al Gore. No wait, it’s Exxon’s fault. Just kidding. It’s really not anyone’s fault. Maybe God’s fault, if you absolutely have to assign blame.
One thing not to blame, for a change, is global warming. Despite the fact that climate changes can cause winds and ocean currents to slow or speed up the spin of the Earth, those are tiny, itty-bitty changes that don’t warrant a leap second. What’s really happening is the same thing that’s been going on for billions of years: The Earth’s spin is very gradually slowing down. It’s just one great big spinning top, after all, in a very low-friction environment that allows it to keep spinning for an extraordinarily long time. But not forever.
Some of my colleagues think this is a pretty depressing bit of news. But I say longer days are a good thing. Let’s have more quality, not quantity of days. Enjoy that extra last second of December 31st by smiling and saying “One Mississippi” then “HAPPY NEW YEAR!”
That reminds me, I need to lose a few pounds… maybe that will help.
Of course you are wrong, but make an interesting point. The earth is slowing/warming. What will be the negative effects and when will they occur? What would need to be done to counteract this effect and what would it cost? I’m sure a series of off center nuclear explosions in space could increase the rotation of Earth, but the percieved benefits of doing so are just not present.
Nice review: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_second
I blame science, for finding all of the flaws in “gods work”.
Lets see…
A LARGE spinning top?
And small things MOVING Huge weights around it, and digging HOLES in it, draining the aquifers and re-distributing 1-2% of the Earths surface..
What to do with all that extra time…
Of course the earth’s spinning is slowing down. That’s what happens when you pump all the oil out.
😉
/T.
ECA… The hugest moving things on the planet, the continents have been moving without our help.
#6 and we DIG them out and Dump them into cities..
Look at Concrete, cement, Gold, LEAd, STEEL, WATER Aquifers….
Things SHIFTED for a few reasons..But Shifting and POSITIONING tend to be for a reason.. And end up as a Balance..A ship at sea MUST have ballast..
A Gyroscope, Has to be perfect, or it does not spin properly or for very long.
Too many people on the earth causing wind resistance so it can’t turn as quickly as it should.
Either that or cows farting. Only makes sense, we should teach it in schools.
Okay, wait for my signal…. the entire world population (that is physically capable), run as fast as you can due east. After 5 seconds, stop as fast as you can. Pass on the word.
If that doesn’t work, use your car.
ECA. If you think the rotational change is man-made. You are an idiot.
#10,
Every time a rocket launches for orbit the earths rotation imparts about 1000mph of its orbital velocity. You don’t think thats free do you???
Hmmm earth’s mass 5.9736×10^24 kg
Rocket’s mass: 3 x 10^6 kg
Likelihood of rocket causing earth to lose appreciable velocity in our lifetime: 0%
Likelihood of rocket landing on your head: 0.00000005%
Likelihood of me being happy if rocket lands on your head: 100%
The real global warming will come when the sun becomes a red giant, and swells to a diameter which will slowly engulf the orbit of Earth. I guess Al Gore will blame us for that, too. Then there is the problem of proton decay. Too bad I won’t be around to see it.
#10,
“ECA. If you think the rotational change is man-made. You are an idiot.”
really..
you think that Augmenting the materials on planet, from 1000 locations to 1 area(longitude) WOULDNT bother the spin??
Look at a world map and plot the HEAVIEST Population centers where all the Metals and concrete, asphalt, STEEL have all been gathered..
Then lets see if the OFFSET from the polar caps MELTING can keep the balance..
The Sun will eventually get big enough to engulf the Earth, but it won’t get big enough to engulf Algore.
It’s a SWAG on my part so bare with me; but, since the Earth is turning on its axis from west to east at more then 1000 miles per hour on the equator, and the ton’s of atomic particle matter from the SUNs solar wind bombarding the globe, this would impart ever so slightly less rotational momentum on the trailing rotational half of earth then on the leading rotational half. Over a long long time, I am sure that has an effect.
Also # 11 GregA observation may also do a very very small part. Since Nasa has a launch preference, launching to the east to uses the Earth’s rotation as a springboard.
I read somewhere once that all the water impounded behind dams in reservoirs around the world may have a measurable effect in slowing Earth’s rotation.
someone needs to slap all these
“omg the earth is changing we have
to do something because its all our fault”
people into next year..
-don’t ya love all this *vapordata* as i
call it.. little data nuggets the average
joe can’t verify without his own set of
geosync sats..
-i say get in your Fred Flintstone car
and start running in the opposite direction…
-you *might* weigh 0.000001 ounces less..as the one of the effects of spinning objects is
mass..(per forbidden science)
-as we enter the center of the galactic
plane in 20120 thru 2016 or so, i’m sure all the celestial bodies will exert some interesting forces that will provide far more interesting news blurbs than one less second.. (if reported)
-lookie.. hey DU crew…how about blogging something really interesting we can all monitor ourselves..
-apparently the MSM and even the search engines seem to be burying this evolving event..
-in my random clicking.. i stumbled onto the USGS
site a few hours ago… guess what kiddies..
-yellowstone park is shaking like a leaf.. over 200+ earth quakes up to 3.8 magnitude in the last 3 days.. (since dec 27th) i’ve chasing evaporating links for the past 4hrs..
here is a small sample of the list.
-magnitudes and date/time/range from
University of Utah Seismograph Station
0.8 2008/12/29 14:25:44 61 km (38 mi) ESE of
2.4 2008/12/29 14:25:15 61 km (38 mi) ESE of
1.6 2008/12/29 14:18:51 61 km (38 mi) ESE of 1.8 2008/12/29 14:18:36 61 km (38 mi) ESE of
2.9 2008/12/29 13:38:25 60 km (37 mi) ESE of
2.3 2008/12/29 13:38:04 60 km (37 mi) ESE of
this could be serious. they’re calling it a quake storm. -look how close those quakes
are.
-there is a huge caldera there ya know. 😮
check it out the rather long page-list at:
http://www.seis.utah.edu/req2webdir/recenteqs/Quakes/quakes0.html
AP news on it here:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/Y/YELLOWSTONE_QUAKES?SITE=TXBRH&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
—
-either that, or the black ops crew
figured out how to get Tesla’s Oscillator
to work, -very well. *shrug*
-s
(update, seems Dec 30 news links are starting to appear)
And to think,
That MOST of S. Idaho is covered in this stuff…
yellowstone..
# 17 Uncle Patso said,
“all the water impounded behind dams in reservoirs around the world may have a measurable effect in slowing Earth’s rotation.”
Simple answer no. Since on average the worlds Dams are facing both east and west, there is no directional preference to Dams.
Plus, if there was some way of getting all the Dams facing east, it seems somehow; that would amount to a perpetual motion machine.
#20 –noname==I’m no physicist, but I think I read those same articles a while back. I don’t think which way the dams are facing have anything at all to do with spin velocity.
I’m just guessing: like a ballerina that extends her arms, some mass is moved farther away from the center of gravity thereby slowing the rotation. Same with massing water that “should be” at sea level and moving it up onto the land===just like a ballerina.
Makes “sense” but I’m no physicist or dancer.
How about something that has actually been observed?
When the sun has an Electromagnetic storm, it affects the Earth’s orbit speed…but the earth does return to it’s normal rate eventually.
What a bunch of idiots. It’s not man-made. It’s not intergalactic or even solar forces. It’s TIDAL forces.
In case nobody has ever noticed, the Moon, which is about 1/6th the mass of the earth and exists only a quarter million miles away, only shows one face toward the Earth.
Is this by happenstance? NO. Tidal forces over the millenia have exerted such a force over the moon’s rotation that now its period of rotation and its period of revolution are now the same.
The Moon is just returning the favor, but just at a much slower rate. If the Earth and Moon continue to exist, there will come a time when the rotation of the earth will be equal to the revolution of the moon and the earth will forever show the same face to the moon.
The days are going to get much longer.
It seems to me that they’ve got the whole thing ass backwards. If the Earth were actually slowing its orbital speed down, it would spiral toward the Sun, and regain speed. Equilibrium. But if it merely pulling away from the Sun, slightly, its orbital period would increase, appearing to take longer to circle the sun. And the reason for pulling away, could be the sun is running out of hydrogen mass (its consuming it all the time, ya know). And the solar winds are byproducts of the sun spewing outward. That’s more mass lost. Or the earth is gain mass, from the tons of dust falling on it each year. But that’s insignificant to what the sun must be losing. And with the orbit growing wider, earth should be growing colder. So unless NASA has a clever idea for refueling the sun’s hydrogen. We’d better hope G.W. saves us from freezing in a about a million years or so.