Spinning with a Changing Climate

ClimateChangePredictions

A new website spoofs preposterous claims regarding climate change:

“I’ve started a website with the idea of making it entertaining as well as informative. The website presents global warming predictions that have been made over the past 40 or so years, especially predictions that are either contradictory or alternatively plainly ridiculous and thus amusing.”

Excerpts:

Earth speeds up

Climate change can also affect the Earth’s spin. Previously, Felix Landerer of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. and colleagues showed that global warming would cause Earth’s mass to be redistributed towards higher latitudes. Since that pulls mass closer to the planet’s spin axis, it causes the planet to rotate faster – just as an ice skater spins faster when she pulls her arms towards her body. – New Scientist 20 Aug 2009

Earth slows down

Belgian scientists have identified a hitherto unsuspected benefit of global warming – more time for all of us. They say increasing levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere will slow the Earth’s rotation. They used computer models to analyse the effect of adding 1% more CO2 to the atmosphere annually. – BBC News, 12 Feb 2002