Earth isn't getting fatter, scientists confirm

Link to Article

At long last, scientists have laid to rest the vicious rumors that Earth is getting fatter.
Since Darwin's time, scientists have speculated the planet might be expanding or contracting. Even with the acceptance of plate tectonics half a century ago, which explained the large-scale motions of Earth's outermost shell, the accusations persisted; some Earth and space scientists continued to speculate on Earth's possible expansion or contraction on various scientific grounds.
Now, those speculations and rumors have been put to rest.
"Our study provides an independent confirmation that the solid Earth is not getting larger at present, within current measurement uncertainties," said Xiaoping Wu of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Using a cadre of space measurement tools and a new data calculation technique, a team of NASA scientists detected no statistically significant expansion of the solid Earth.
However, they did estimate the planet's radius changes, on average, by about 0.004 inches per year, or about the thickness of a human hair — a rate considered statistically insignificant.

So... this means the Earth had a 15 foot smaller radius when it was created. That's only slightly more than the floor to your ceiling.

Well, the data in the article is what it is: data.

The interpretation of it is questionable. The main problem I have is that a common presumption is being made here: that this rate of expansion is static.

The same as with the whole Global Warming farce. We only know our data, and then seek to presume that which our data does not really support: a static environment with steady and consistent change.

reply to post by CeeRZ

Earth might not be getting fatter, but the people on it are!!

my first question would be how do you get 15 feet? I didnt see it in the article. Maybe I missed it... Im under the impression the earth wasnt created but formed.


Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

OK so Earth isn't getting fatter but I believe it's getting Heavier/Larger albeit very slowly with the accumulative amounts of meteorite impacts collectivity say over a thousand years would tend to add up IMO.

Now multiply that out by a few million years...

Originally posted by bigfatfurrytexan
Well, the data in the article is what it is: data.

The interpretation of it is questionable. The main problem I have is that a common presumption is being made here: that this rate of expansion is static.

The same as with the whole Global Warming farce. We only know our data, and then seek to presume that which our data does not really support: a static environment with steady and consistent change.

Agreed. It's similar to going to a pregnant woman about 15 minutes before her water breaks and measuring for 10 minutes and concluding that her belly has not expanded.

Namaste!

reply to post by CeeRZ


I don't believe them.

First they are scientists
Second we already know they lost 18mm a year of those 'space' measurements.
Third it is NASA

Not really got a lot going for it in my book.

reply to post by CeeRZ

The team applied a new data calculation technique to estimate the rate of change in the solid Earth's average radius over time, taking into account the effects of other geophysical processes. Geodetic techniques (satellite laser ranging, very long baseline interferometry and GPS) were used to obtain data on Earth surface movements from a global network of carefully selected sites. These data were then combined with measurements of Earth's gravity from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) spacecraft and models of ocean bottom pressure, which help scientists interpret gravity change data over the ocean.

www.livescience.com...

They don't give the source of this paper - and before I accept it I would like to know just what statistical assumptions went into their 'new data calculation technique' - are they for instance assuming a constant volume as a baseline and then trying to ascertain whether there is an increase in obliquity.

Which is what the title actually suggests - otherwise they would have stated the earth is not expanding!

Originally posted by strafgod
my first question would be how do you get 15 feet? I didnt see it in the article. Maybe I missed it... Im under the impression the earth wasnt created but formed.

 

Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

 

math

Originally posted by bigfatfurrytexan
Well, the data in the article is what it is: data.

The interpretation of it is questionable. The main problem I have is that a common presumption is being made here: that this rate of expansion is static.

The same as with the whole Global Warming farce. We only know our data, and then seek to presume that which our data does not really support: a static environment with steady and consistent change.

I don't think they assumed it was linear. They calculated the average radius (Earth is not a perfect sphere), does not have to be a constant rate of change.

The earth's rotation if anything has been slowing since formation. In the days the dinosaurs roamed the day was about 22 hours long in a 400 day year. Before they arrived a year was over 500 days of less than 18 hours. The moon was still tidally locked and closer.

misleading title 1st you state earth isnt getting fatter then you add that earth expands 0.004 per year?

Originally posted by thestupidguy
misleading title 1st you state earth isnt getting fatter then you add that earth expands 0.004 per year?

Nothing is truly static, as the article states this is statistically insignificent. As a previous poster pointed out at the rate of 0.004 inches per year the eath would have expanded by 15ft in its entire existance, dont think we need to worry about the earths diameter changing by the width of a human hair each year.

At the equator the earth is 12,756.32 km in diameter. 0.004" x 254 = 0.0001016m / year
0.0001016m / 12756320m = 7.9647 x 10-11% / year = 0.000000000079647% / year
In other words if the earth expanded at a set rate of 0.004" per year, it would take 12,555,433,071 years for the earths diameter to increase by 1%, I would consider that not expanding myself

I am sure I have not got all that maths precisely correct, but Im sure you get the gist of it.

reply to post by 547000


the scientists may not have, but the author of the article sure seems to imply it. And certainly the OP says it.

Originally posted by bigfatfurrytexan
The interpretation of it is questionable. The main problem I have is that a common presumption is being made here: that this rate of expansion is static.

I didn't see any such presumption in the article. They described the current expansion.

I think scientists would be unanimous in agreeing that the rate of expansion has not been static. The collision of Thea with the Earth which formed the moon would have created a sudden and dramatic increase in the Earth's mass, so that's about as non-static as you can get, and that's a pretty commonly accepted theory.

I tend to doubt they are measuring something as large as the Earth as accurately as a human hair. However we can measure the separation of North America from Europe at a rate of maybe an inch a year, so even if they don't have it down to a hair, they have apparently ruled out that the current inch a year separation in the Atlantic ocean is due to expansion, but instead confirmed it's caused by plate tectonics.

Planet Earth Is Getting Fatter

By Katharine Gammon Published July 28, 2011 | Inside Science News Service

Like many of its inhabitants, the Earth is getting thicker around the middle -- that's what a new study out this week says. The increased bulge is due to the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. The Earth was never perfectly round to begin with, due to its spin. Just as an ice skater's skirt flutters up and away from her skates during her pirouette, water on Earth is more concentrated at the equator than at the poles. As recently as 22,000 years ago, several miles of ice covered much of the northern hemisphere. Since the downward pressure of land-based ice has reduced as the ice melted, the land underneath has "rebounded" causing the Earth to become more spherical, said Steve Nerem, an aerospace engineer at the University of Colorado at Boulder and coauthor of a new analysis of the Earth's bulge. Read more: www.foxnews.com...

Kind of strange - one article says fatter,the other it's staying the same.

The earth's circumference is not static, the earth bulges slightly with every full moon, up to 6 inches on average, and this past year's supermoon caused a 9 inch bulge, as the full moon occurred during the perigee of the moon's elliptical orbit. However, there is no link to an increase in earth tectonic activity during full or supermoons.