Natural Science Forum / Earth Science / Oceanography / February 2006

http://www.signs-of-the-times.org/signs/chains/signs20060213_WeirdWorld.php

The Earth's Wobble Has Paused What this portends, no one knows.

Michael Mandeville
February 8, 2006

For at least three and a half weeks there has been almost no movement
of the spin axis in the normal spiral track of Chandler's Wobble.

Have we come to a profound change in the geophysics of the Earth? Why
this sudden change in what usually has been for the past 100 years or
more a fairly regular, fairly predictable wobble track.

As is well known, the wobble is generated by the differential pulling
of the Moon and the Sun on the Earth's equatorial bulge (and any other
concentrations of mass in or on the Earth). This differential pulling
is caused by the oblique angles of the orbital planes which bring the
Sun and the Moon alternatively above and below the equator, thus
tending through orbital time to push one side of the Earth or the other
to move faster or slower than the other side to the North or to the
South.

The Earth's Wobble has a 7 year cycle which produces two extremes, a
small spiraling wobble circle and a large spiraling wobble circle,
about 3.5 years apart. The Earth was in October 2005 moving into the
small spiraling circle (the MIN phase of the wobble), which should have
slowly unfolded during 2006 and the first few months of 2007. (Each
spiraling circle takes about 14 months).

But suddenly at the beginning of November 2005, the track of the
location of the spin axis veered at a very sharp right angle to its
circling motion. The track of the spin axis began to slow down and by
about January 8, 2006, it ceased nearly all relative motion on the x
and y coordinates which are used to define the daily changing location
of the spin axis.

One can see this effect by looking at the graphs on this page. [...]

The current cessation is clearly the result of a strong contending
vector of push or pull which is counteracting the driving forces of the
Sun and Moon. Since orbital motions have not changed in any significant
way, these orbiting influences are the same as they always have been.
The "change" in gravitational vectors (or spin vectors) MUST be in
the Earth, somewhere or somehow. What is this shift?