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[Shortpoet-GTD]

We all know the dangers of warming that will lead to more methane release but
the spin rate of the planet changed too?
And what could the long term effects of this be-if any?


"Events in the Southern Ocean conspired to make the Earth spin ever-so-slightly faster,
shortening half of the days in the month by 0.1 milliseconds each.
Different factors affect how fast the Earth spins. For instance, if the winds that whip around the
planet slow down, the Earth spins faster to conserve angular momentum.

There was a more down-to-earth cause in November 2009, however. The Antarctic Circumpolar Current is a powerful ocean current that rings the continent.
Stephen Marcus and his colleagues at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California and
at the Institute of Earth Physics of Paris in France noticed that it slowed abruptly
on 8 November 2009, only to speed up two weeks later.

This is the first time we have seen a rapid change in the oceans that is large enough to affect the Earth's rotation, says Marcus. The event is worth noting as the Antarctic currents directly
impact the health of the ice sheets.

Models suggest that such shifts will happen more frequently as a result of climate change.

This isn't the only way that climate change may affect Earth's spin. Models suggest that
rising sea levels will shift water towards the poles, drawing mass in closer to the Earth's axis and making it spin faster."
http://www.newscient...ref=environment

[jasserEnv]

This is one of those points that is an interesting tidbit but little more. Sometimes these sorts of details are what opponents to climate change cling on to as the "minimalist" effects that can be associated with climate change. That said it would be interesting to see if other effects are observed as a result of changes in the spin rate. Theoretically, if the earth is spinning faster then the oceans around the equator might rise somewhat although whether the amount is significant is another question.