Boss Radio

Things I didn't know Dept.: Gravity isn't the same all over the planet, and it can be affected by extreme weather conditions. They were chattering about this on a science programme on the BBC World Service as though it was common knowledge. Well I didn't know it, please tell me I'm not the only person on the planet who thought that gravity was constant...

Anyway, these guys were looking into the effects of the changing climate, and there's good news and there's bad news. The good news is that they think the threat of the land-bound ice caps melting is probably nowhere near as likely as has been predicted. The bad knews is that the Western shelf of the Antactic, which is standing in water, is not only fairly certain to melt, but that melting will cause so much water to enter into circulation that it will alter gravity. It will become lighter in the southern hemisphere, and heavier on the other side of the world. In fact pretty much right over the USA.

Not that anyone will feel the difference of course, it's not going to be that much of a shift, but it will be enough to change the Earth's pattern of rotation, and that will cause the seas to rise by more than average on the west and east coasts of N. America and the Indian Ocean.

Of course, this isn't going to happen in the next 24 hours, the prediction is for somewhere between 2050 and 2100, so hey, let's not worry about it overmuch.

It's not our problem, it's our kid's.