Melting Ice Could Cause Gravity Shift

Hello!

I will tend to dismiss the "Einstein relativistic stuff" since i think it does not apply in this case. At least not significantly!

As a matter of fact there were a zillion things that were troubling me with the melting ice cap that i never went as far as the gravitational shift.
By my language its quite easy to conclude that i am from the ones like cosmicpixiethat believe in the global warming. Some people think its a natural process while others conclude that humans have greatly messed up the natural "flow" of things. I belong in the later category with little reservation that is a natural phenomenon.
From recorded history and comparing to recent decades the rate of change does not add up any more. Nor does the accelerating rate of melting ice caps. Many areas/fields are also dis-balanced (in my opinion) with chaotic and unpredictable consequences. The most noticeable ones are weather patterns and temperature.
All kinds of pollution and Earth abuse by our immature civilisation, have even more perplexing consequences but that is another subject.
To cut a long story short:
We are responsible for this MESS which IS NOW a REALITY. This is a living nightmare. A real thriller...

Moving on.... I tend to think that the best scenario to possibly consider is that the ice caps have and will again act as being a buffer absorbing external factors. It used to be factors from beyond our atmosphere but as i said earlier i hold us humans today responsible as one of these factors, at best...

I will let go of scenarios because the possibilities are chaotic whatever the case. I am not God, so i just don't know. If you asked me, i would say:
I AM NOT EXPECTING GOOD NEWS...

On the specific scenario which seems to be soon a reality my insight goes as below:

Considering that ice has the same mass but greater volume than water per unit, the melt down of the arctic will shift water to replace ice in the melted down areas. Consequently there will be an increase of mass in these areas (of whatever magnitude) and a decrease along the equator.
The immediate consequence of that will be that Earth should retain its rotational inertia. In order for that to be achieved the angular speed of rotation will....decrease.

I guess that the above are pretty easy to follow although my English is getting rusty and i might have been able to put that down in a better way.
Whatever... I guess simple language as that is best for many.

Consider this now: We have started to play with gravity, rate of rotation, maybe a bunch of other things too.
(that i most certainly miss out just now, since i have to communicate my thoughts to you by typing and trying to keep a flow.)

GUESS WHAT!
These are already to many factors to mess things up big time.

I will try to put down a few of my thoughts as they spring out of my mind:

Maybe the slower rotation will change the interpretation of energy absorbance to our Planet from space. Consequence: At best weather will be much different if not unrecognisable. Further consequences? TOO MANY
New York being flooded being the least significant one...

Change of pressure on the plates, as stated earlier, will occur with unpredictable behaviour. Imagine the case of earthquakes triggering a chain reaction of movement until new balance is achieved. Further consequences? NIGHTMARE TO EVEN THINK ABOUT. Australia being tipped over in the process being a possibility. (Just an example... Sorry...a harsh one indeed...)

Change of Earths rotational speed will also change the acceleration on the plates. Ok the plates will now move slower angularly, with smaller centrifugal forces acting on them, making them in effect "heavier" to their underlying core.... Consequences? Brrrrr NIGHTMARE
I am just starting to lay out thoughts and i allready have the Earth's core involved...unintentionally indeed, but hey that's that and i wish i could be proven wrong. I do not want to start depicting what the above mean in effect.

Now consider: I am not putting more factors in the equation although they are endless. What do you have above in this simple crude list?

New realities for gravity, temperatures, weather*, plate behaviour, water distribution, mass of water distribution, a new environment for Earths core... etc... etc... etc... etc... etc... etc... etc... etc... etc...

duhhh probably even a melt down ice cap that its beyond its capacity to act as a buffer any more...

(*weather: wind, rain, atmospheric changes, space weather differently affecting the planet...etc...etc...etc... )

Now my friends you have a slice of the nightmare. In the process i think that i have given dear cosmicpixie my views in the wise questions which never occurred to me. However consider this. I did not dig the above from any references or bibliography. I just thought of them and they seem logical when applying basic science. There is no science that can control/predict exactly what will happen. Most probably there is no bibliography on a couple of things i mentioned either.

Dear cosmicpixie!

I have enjoyed the read, since it gave me an even more complex way to view things. However this complexity we humans have created unnecessarily and immaturely is not a joy anymore.

However i have spared a positive thought for the ending.
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Maybe things are not as bad. Lets just hope that the redistribution will not be as bad as we have been to the planet and our fellow Earthlings.


King regards and love to all.

EDIT for wrong op referral

[edit on 16/5/2009 by GEORGETHEGREEK]

Originally posted by tothetenthpower
reply to post by Phage

 

Yeah I have to agree here. It's not like were removing mass from the planet and moving it to another side of the planet.

According to equilibrium the water levels would rise everywhere in the same fashion. It's not like we have barriers that separate the flow of water from the oceans.

Now Global Warming is occurring, although I refer to it as climate change because we aren't the problem, the Sun is. I can't see how anything other than something falling from space and impacting the planet could set it off course or change gravity in any sort of way.

Interesting article however, I hadn't been introduced to this line of thought before.

~Keeper

Excuse me my friend, but i have to disagree with you unfortunately.

Sea levels vary greatly from place to place. If i recall correctly and my mind serves me well you have a difference of about 33 meters between oceans circling the Americas. That is not taking into account the tides...

If a big enough object hits another one in space huge things can happen which i will not analyse just now except if you require so.
As i recall there is even a theory that the moon might have been formed by such an impact. Lets say such an impact actually occurred. If it was head on the Earth might have shattered to a quadrillion of zillions of pieces or derailed to whatever destination, that might be the Sun, a new orbit, or a long drift into space before next happens...

That is except for the case you are talking for a bowling ball falling off the sky...

I hope you can see now, but if you insist you might like to have a read in external references/bibliography.

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan


Yes, Yes,Yes!! I have wondered this also. Something had to happen to change our gravity. Your theory is one I have contemplated. There are many things that happened in our galaxy so long ago we will never know, but this question, for some reason, is really frustrating me. I guess because I wonder if it could happen again. ???

reply to post by pyrytyes


What you are referring to, and what some others are referring to is called Isostatic Rebound and it is a phenomenon that occurs when a continental plate becomes lighter, and rises. its like a boat, you make it heaver and it sinks in the water. The removal of the glaciers and ice sheets will not cause any form of gravitational shifting because ice is nowhere near as dense as rock. Any sinking in the tectonic plates due to the ice sheets melting will be quite slight yet can, over geological time, can have an effect on the worlds sea levels


Also, to complement this is Eustacy which is the change in the volume of water in the oceans. This effect will effectively override any noticeable consequences of Isostacy

Eustacy and Isostacy
Eustatic effects are those caused by global sea-level change. If the sea level rises and nothing else changes, there will be transgression, and if it falls, there will be regression. Isostatic effects are those caused by changes in elevation of the land itself. If the land level rises and nothing else changes, there will be regression, and if it falls, there will be transgression. The isostacy can be caused by the accumulation or melting of glaciers, by bending of the earth's crust beyond land ice sheets, by changes in sea level, and by global adjustments to these changes. These effects affect the details of the sea-level changes in many parts of the world.
Link

If every single iceberg in the entire world, and the entire Arctic were to melt tonight, do you know how high sea levels would rise?

Not one millimeter! And a gravity shift? Ain't gonna happen!

If you were not taught this following fact in grade 4 science, you were attending a second rate school. Let me explain it just in case you were playing hooky that day. When water freezes, it expands (it's the only liquid on this planet that does that... all the others will shrink when frozen). Therefore that chunk of ice is less dense than the water that it was made from because it's now occupying a slightly larger volume. So it floats. And when that block of ice melts, it shrinks back down to the volume of water that it originally started from.

Try this! Next time you have a Rye & Coke, fill the glass with as much ice as you like. Fill it until the ice is so high that it's sticking above the rim of your glass. Fill it so full of ice that the liquid is just about to spill over the rim and the ice is an inch above the glass. Just make sure all the ice is truly floating... like the icebergs. Then just sit back and watch it melt and see how much the "sea level" rises. When all the ice has melted, how much of it has spilled over and flooded your carpet? Not one drop. All that ice has melted back into the volume of water it was created from.

The entire notion of the sea levels rising and flooding coastal cities is the silliest bunch of nonsense I've ever heard. It's Al Gore spreading these goofy notions in order to further his agenda of spreading lies and fear about global warming, in order to implement this insane carbon tax. It's all lies aimed at bilking the world's innocent populations of more and more money.

Now the ice that is currently supported by land... that ice is a different story. That ice would indeed cause a sea level rise... perhaps 2 inches. Only 2 inches because most of the ice in the world is already floating.

The portion of an iceberg that is above the water line will disappear back into the volume of the portion of the iceberg that is below the water line. The net change in sea level will be zero. It's grade 4 science folks.

[edit on 17-5-2009 by Albertarocks]

reply to post by funny_pom


Part of my first post was tongue in cheek...actually, the antarctic plate is a plug. When the ice melts, the plate will rise and drain all the oceans. Then we will be in for it. It is at this point that we will hurtle through space.

The give-away to me, about the seriousness of the article was in the emphasis on the North American continent, completely leaving the remainder of the northern latitudes out of the equation.

Thank you for the input... I am one of "those" with the belief that there is absolutely nothing that we can do to prevent Mother Earth from doing her thing. If She decides to shake us all off, I wouldn't blame Her a bit. I am thankful that I will not be conscious to the effects when She does.

reply to post by pyrytyes


Again, think gyroscopes. A small gyroscope can be used to keep a missile on course. The Earth is, in some respects, a very large gyroscope. Nothing that happens on the surface is likely to cause that gyroscope to ceasing functioning and suddenly tilt in a new direction.

All this confusion results from people confusing the reversal of the magnetic poles. This happens at irregular intervals and can be detected in the orientation of minerals in the magna welling up from the Earth. The minerals align themselves in a north-south direction before the lava cools. When they're pointed one way, "north" is that way. And vice versa. We can even tell how long the reversal took by finding the particles that are "confused".

People have taken the "magnetic pole reversal" bit and ran with it. They first leave out the "magnetic". Then they say the poles didn't reverse, the planet actually flipped over. All that built on a mistake. (Which isn't a surprise, now it is?)

reply to post by Gawdzilla

So, you are telling me that up will still be up? Thank the gods! But I bet my compass will be confused...

The phenomena of pole reversals, as discovered along the mid-Atlantic ridge, is not of any great concern. We are due, I just wish I could determine the exact time it happens, so I could watch the compass flip. That would be a laugh.

Thanks for your input. By way of explanation: I try to keep descriptions simple. I am actually well versed in geologic processes, having obtained my degree in geology. There are areas, Antarctica, e.g., where I have limited knowledge, due to, mostly, limited published (free) geologic information (other than the fact that is covered by a lot of ice). The structures, my forte, are not readily, directly observable. Drill core analysis simply does not expose enough of the structure to make interpretation possible to any extent. I have not been privy to, nor ambitious enough, to research the data available, to see what is available that might stimulate more interest.
(If that makes sense)

As most of the published information pertains to ice cores, relative to climate and the changes thereof, I am ignorant to the most basic information re: rock types, ages, etc.

OOPS! Did I just confirm that I am LAZY? Guilty!

I sincerely appreciate your input.

reply to post by pyrytyes


At Purdue they told me that we probably wouldn't notice the "flip", as it would be gradual, over a span of years. Is that your understanding as well?

(BTW, I elaborate for the lurkers, not exclusively for the person I'm replying to. Nothing personal there, I assure you.)

reply to post by Gawdzilla


The flip will be, or is, gradual. Yes, that is my understanding, as well.
Purdue, eh? Geology / Earth sciences? Met one from there some years back...'88/89.

The banding along the mid-Atl. ridge, is ~ pretty much uniform widths pre (n/s) & post (s/n) flip. Indicative of nearly uniform time intervals; but are there indications of N to E (W), E (W) to S, and/ or vice versa, to show progression of the flip, or is it N to S... BAM! (thank you ma'am, there you have it) SHIFT?
If there is a progessional change, I wonder if these bands, if identifiable, are uniform, as well? Any knowledge?

Originally posted by pyrytyes
reply to post by Gawdzilla

 

The flip will be, or is, gradual. Yes, that is my understanding, as well.
Purdue, eh? Geology / Earth sciences? Met one from there some years back...'88/89.

Earth Sciences. I took an oceanography intro (Prof. James Ogg) and wound up doing 'work study' in the labs for a year or two. Lots of fun when they came back from Antarctica.

The banding along the mid-Atl. ridge, is ~ pretty much uniform widths pre (n/s) & post (s/n) flip. Indicative of nearly uniform time intervals; but are there indications of N to E (W), E (W) to S, and/ or vice versa, to show progression of the flip, or is it N to S... BAM! (thank you ma'am, there you have it) SHIFT?
If there is a progessional change, I wonder if these bands, if identifiable, are uniform, as well? Any knowledge?

I haven't seen mention of a consistent progression rate. Of course, I've slept since I took that class (Fall '94.)