Related To Global Warming......

[mosaix]

Although this posts is related to global warming, that's incidental. I just wanted to point out how complex scientific issues can be and how somethings can take the layman unawares.

There's a question in New Scientist (13th October 2007) about the rise in sea level should the ice fields melt.

The answer is from someone who works at the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory in Liverpool.

I've know for sometime that some land masses would rise up when they shed the weight of ice on them but I never, ever thought of this:

I quote:

"The Greenland ice produces a gravitational attraction that pulls the ocean towards it. As the ice melts, this attraction decreases and the ocean relaxes away from Greenland."

 

[Nik]

Like how Everest was weighed...

Um, that would be related to how Everest was weighed, and why NASA fretted over the Apollo missions in their very low orbit around Moon. Mascons. Local gravity differs slightly from that expected for latitude and, if you check the subtle decimals, does not point 'straight down'...

IIRC, the radar-ranging SeaSats did some interesting studies on the swell & sag of the oceans over undersea ridges etc...

IIRC, there's been a long-standing (pun intended) argument on how Himalayas & Everest rise so high. Turns out to have very complex implications for plate tectonic modelling...