Stop the Presses: EE is Real!

If these folks are to be believed, http://makeashorterlink.com/?B24E216FA ,
EE is a "Documented Reality".

Never thought I would ever agree with the EE Theory in any way. This is
proof of the old adage "Never say never". The things affected/implications
of this are many.

Time is one issue in particular. The speed of the Earth's rotation would be
affected as the Earth's diameter fluctuated.
Ralph Nesbit
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Earth Gets Fatter Thanks to Faster Glacial Melting

Accelerated melting of Earth's glaciers in recent years has forced the
planet to let a notch out of its belt as its midsection gains girth,
according to a study released today.

The increased water flowing into the oceans each year since 1997 is equal to
a square block of ice that would cover much of Utah, accounting for about
half of a mysterious equatorial bulge first reported in August.

The other contributing half appears to involve changing ocean currents that
have redirected water from polar regions to tropical areas.

The puzzling redistribution of mass actually involved a measurement of
Earth's gravitational field.

Earth has never been exactly spherical; it has always been somewhat
pumpkin-shaped. Since the last Ice Age, though, the planet has gotten
rounder and rounder as ground beneath the polar regions, relieved of the
weight from ice, rebounds.

Between 1997 and 1998, however, that rounding tendency suddenly reversed,
satellite data showed, and the equator seems to have been getting fatter
ever since. Scientists who announced the reversal could not explain it, but
they were nearly certain the answer was in the oceans.

The retreat of the South Cascade Glacier in the Washington Cascade Mountains
is evident in these two photographs, from 1928 and 2000.

Estimated mass change in glaciers outside Antarctica or Greenland, referred
to as sub-polar and mountain glaciers.

The new study seems to confirm that suspicion.

"Our solution to the puzzle is rather straightforward, and involves
redistribution of water mass from high to low latitudes, in quantities
sufficient to counteract the ongoing effects of post-glacial rebound," said
Jean Dickey, a researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,
Calif., who led the latest work.

The study found less water in the so-called Antarctic Circumpolar Current,
and more water in the tropical Pacific and Indian Oceans. The results are
laid out in the Dec. 6 issue of the journal Science.

Long-term changes in ocean currents may well be normal, like extended
versions of the El Nino cycle, but researches don't have data over long
enough time periods to know what exactly goes on.

The melting of mountain glaciers, on the other hand, is of greater concern
to scientists pondering the extent and effects of global warming. Other
research teams have catalogued the phenomenon in many regions of the planet.
Evidence continues to mount that a warming atmosphere is fueling accelerated
melting worldwide.

"The enhanced glacial melting amounts to several hundred cubic kilometers of
water per year during the time of the most rapid changes [1997-98]," Dickey
told SPACE.com. "The transport [of water] toward the equator in the ocean
had a similar magnitude."

Dickey's team worked with data supplied by the scientists who made the
original discovery of the planet's swelling midsection. They also analyzed
recent data on the oceans, land ice, the atmosphere, and groundwater. The
study did not consider possible effects of polar ice sheets in Greenland and
Antarctica, for which not enough information was available.

Dickey cautioned that the study is not entirely conclusive, as the changes
in sea level are measured in millimeters and represent a "daunting task"
that requires numerous corrections to account for various known factors,
such as natural short-term fluctuations.



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