Earth is Speeding Up!

[Paul M]

17 hours ago, DaveL59 said:

hmm so the ice caps melting, more sea water mass, moon pulling that extra mass along, rotation accelerates a little bit...?

Nothing to do with ice caps but primarily the tidal bulge slamming into the continents as the Earth rotates below it.

The Irish Sra is apparently redoponsible for considerable fraction of the tidal friction.

[Rusted]

1 hour ago, Paul M said:

Nothing to do with ice caps but primarily the tidal bulge slamming into the continents as the Earth rotates below it.

The Irish Sea is apparently responsible for considerable fraction of the tidal friction.

If the ice caps are melting and the sea is rising then logic suggests increased radius leading to slowing. Not the reverse.

I'm blaming the outer core "blobs." They must be shrinking.

[Paul M]

4 hours ago, Rusted said:

If the ice caps are melting and the sea is rising then logic suggests increased radius leading to slowing. Not the reverse.

I'm blaming the outer core "blobs." They must be shrinking.

The transfer of angular momentum to orbital momentum in the Earth/Moon system has gone on over multiple glacial periods.

We're still in an ice age, that is,  the polar regions are ice covered. The North Pole because it's land locked and the south pole because it has a continent sat over .

The science suggests that the current warming "forcing" will not prevent the next onset of glaciation. 

Yet, Earth will continue to slow it's axial rotation and the Moon will get even more distant.

[DaveL59]

if you mean the continents yep tidal erosion will do that 😉 

[Paul M]

There will likely be some component of the slowing due to geological effects too but I'm not familiar with those. The precession of the equinoxes must add/ indicate some torque in the Earth/Moon system.

As a side note. I first read about this stuff in Asimov's Guide to Science. Asimov was better known for SciFi but he made his mark on my developing mind with physics.  He was a Chemistry PhD and a brilliant teacher of science. 

He was there at the apex of my learning curve ( such as it was! )