NavList:

George H, you wrote:
"This gave rise to an old-fashioned rant from Frank"

George, why are you picking fights again?

And you wrote:
"I know nothing about the outfit that produced that report"

Ah, well, I do know something about the various outfits involved in this, so maybe you should consider what I'm saying instead of doing your best to attack me. Make sense?

And you wrote:
"but I can see nothing seriously wrong with the resulting article, which has appeared in similar form in various news outlets around the World including my
"Guardian" this morning."

The fact that many, many news sources picked it up is evidence of what exactly? Does that mean it's really news, or does that mean that press releases from NASA are effective? Or is it just monkey see, monkey do?

Maybe you will enjoy this extract from another media source:
"The deadly [...] earthquake may have permanently accelerated the Earth's rotation -- shortening days by a fraction of a second -- and caused the planet to wobble on its axis, U.S. scientists said on Tuesday.

Richard Gross, a geophysicist with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, theorized that a shift of mass toward the Earth's center during the quake on Sunday caused the planet to spin 3 microseconds, or 3 millionths of a second, faster and to tilt about an inch on its axis.

[...]
Gross said changes predicted by his model probably are too minuscule to be detected by a global positioning satellite network that routinely measures changes in Earth's spin, but said the data may reveal a slight wobble.

The Earth's poles travel a circular path that normally varies by about 33 feet, so an added wobble of an inch is unlikely to cause long-term effects, he said.

'That continual motion is just used to changing,' Gross said. 'The rotation is not actually that precise. The Earth does slow down and change its rate of rotation.'

[...]
Scientists have long theorized that changes on the Earth's surface such as tide and groundwater shifts and weather could affect its spin but they have not had precise measurements to prove it, Caltech seismologist Hiroo Kanamori said.

'Even for a very large event, the effect is very small,' Kanamori said. 'It's very difficult to change the rotation rate substantially.' "

That may sound an awful lot like the short article you read in your "Guardian" today, but actually this was from early January, 2005. You see, they issued more or less the same press release after the Sumatra earthquake. This earlier story was from the L.A. Times, and they at least managed to make the point that this was all utterly trivial, and they had the journalistic skills (unlike the folks at space.com) to seek out comments from another geophysicist.

You noted:

"The only serious error was Peter's, in confusing the predicted change in day-length, correctly stated in microseconds, to refer to milliseconds. "

I believe that was in the original article by space.com, picked up by various other media without change, which was corrected on their web site later in the day. Not that it matters, of course. I just wanted to mention that it probably wasn't Peter's error.

George says:
"An example of Frank Reed denigration" [etc.]

Cool! So now I have my very own *brand* of denigration?! It's "Frank Reed denigration", not just any generic denigration. We really need to buy you a nice new Thesaurus of Rhetorical Flourishes, George. You've been whining about how I've "denigrated" this or "denigrated" that for years now, ad nauseam. What next? Will you start talking about "trotting out hobbyhorses" again? We haven't heard that one in a while. Since I am sure your game of... how shall I put it... "denigrating" everything I write will continue, I suggest you start making a list of synonyms. You wouldn't want to bore your audience, would you?

And wrote:
"was his phrase about Gross; "supposedly of NASA JPL", who should for some reason be ashamed of himself. What was the "supposedly" intended to imply? Does he have any grounds for questioning that affiliation? "

I think I see what you were doing here. Rather than reading my words as plain text, which is all you had in front of you, you imagined an inflection. You imagined me "sneering" the word "supposedly"... But that's all in your head, George. All I was saying is that this is ALL that I know about his affiliation. Is he also connected with a university? Or just NASA? I don't know. This affects the way press releases are handled. NASA is somewhat notorious in their use of press releases.

You concluded:

"What, on Earth, has consideration of the geophysics involved, to do with whether or not they are still pulling victims from the rubble? "

You're being a bit naive, George. This story was the result of a PRESS RELEASE from a US government agency that is competing for funding. There is no significant science here. The change in the Earth's rotation is miniscule. It is not an observed change. It is simply output from a computer program, an interesting computer program, yes, but it's not newsworthy. They are piggybacking on the wave of media interest in a great disaster. They are USING this disaster to get media attention and therefore funding. This whole thing is a "golly gee whiz" factoid, and most of the media that have picked it up are simply unaware that it is completely insignificant. They also do not mention that ALL earthquakes, ALL storms, ALL shifts in ocean currents, all changes in the Earth that move mass from one place to another (except at constant distance from the Earth's axis) change the Earth's axis of rotation and rate of rotation very slightly. The cumulative effect of annual weather changes on the Earth's rotation is far larger than even a great earthquake.

-FER

----------------------------------------------------------------
NavList message boards and member settings: www.fer3.com/NavList
Members may optionally receive posts by email.
To cancel email delivery, send a message to NoMail[at]fer3.com
----------------------------------------------------------------