Saturday, March 5, 2011

Weather makes the Earth wobble

from:www.livescience.com
... the team determined that weather patterns in the Northern Hemisphere play a significant role the small wobbles.

The location of high- or low-pressure centers and the relation of these systems to each other played a measurable role in generating small, short-term wobbles, the scientists report. Moving weather systems caused the pole positions to swing in small loops ranging from the size of a cell phone to a sheet of paper.

The motion of the ocean also affects short-term wobbles; the study showed that oceanic pressure variations also coincided with the polar loops. This is the first study to demonstrate that day-to-day changes in atmospheric pressure produce a measurable effect on Earth's rotation.

The study is detailed in the July 1 issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

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