Global Warming....Some Geophysical Realities

[JPreisig@AOL.COM]

Hi Radsafers:


     From:  Jpreisig@aol.com


     I hope you are all enjoying the spring (summer-like) weather.  Best 

wishes

to the people in the midwest USA fighting the floods.


     This e-mail message concerns global warming.  Clearly global warming has

as one of its sources the considerable use we make of fossil fuels.

I would like to point out that there may be at least one other recent source 

of

global warming...the Earth's polar motion, i.e. the Earth's wobble(s) which

occur orthogonally to the Earth's spin/rotation.  These wobbles consist of

an annual wobble, the Chandler wobble (with period 433 days) and a long

period wobble called the Markowitz wobble.  The Chandler wobble is named 

after Seth Chandler, a Massachusetts merchant and astronomer who 

discovered the wobble (observationally!!!!) in the 1890's.  For Rutgers

Rad Health types Seth Chandler is not Dr. Louis Chandler!!!!


     Anyway, the annual wobble and Chandler wobble superimposed 

(Earth-mechanically) produce sum and difference frequencies 

(i.e. beats) which produce maxima in the Earth's polar motion.

The last two such peaks (which are gradual) were in 1910 and 1954, roughly.

I believe another such peak has occurred in 1998.  Guinot's (an astronomer)

work shows the first two peaks.  Other references on Earth rotation are

books by Munk & MacDonald  and Lambeck.  Anyway, if another polar 

motion peak did occur about 1998, there are consequences (i.e. warming)

for the Earth's geometric axis tipping more steeply towards the sun.


     I don't know if many global warming studies incorporate these polar 

motion effects into their analyses, but I fear they do not.  I project (using

very limited data) that there will be rather "explosive???" growth rates of 

plants and animal life off the North American coast in the next 3-5 years,

possibly accompanied by larger than usual visits (number in time) from larger

ocean fish predators.  Perhaps I have spent to much time on Long Island

hearing stories about great white sharks off the east end of Long Island.


      Nevertheless, Earth polar motion is a scientific reality, and is 

measured 

routinely (and often) by VLBI (Very Long Baseline Interferometry), a radio

astronomy technique.  For details on VLBI, see the NASA Goddard Space

Flight Center's (Earth Sciences Directorate) World Wide Web Pages.


     Just more fuel for the scientific fire.  Best Wishes,


                                                        Joseph R. Preisig, 

Ph.D.