Wednesday, March 3, 2010

The Shorter Day

Aloha, my Friends!

I'm Back on Line

here in

W A I K I K I



please click on the photos to make them bloom
WE moved everything we own (well, most of the important stuff)

off/on our boat/home twice.

Sirens were blaring, and police clearing the
streets the first time.

We just hoped to get to a certain 20th floor


apartment nearby. We didn't know if we would be permitted to drive our

two vehicle caravan in that direction.

All the while Miss Kitty howled and


hurled her furry fury at the gate of her travel carrier.

Once we were parked above the third floor I felt myself relax a bit.

The tsunami might wipe away all normalcy in Hawaii for a while, but we

and all prudent people had been warned and moved to safer places.

We might find ourselves in Venice,

but we were high enough to survive
any wave that might come.

Last Spring I was riding along little Young


Street (about a mile and a half inland) when I saw groups of kids chalking

a blue line representing the Tsunami Inundation Zone.

We might have


watched as a good portion of urban Honolulu was covered with water!


WE are home, life is blessedly normal again.
And I'm well pleased with how our island behaved.
We all learned a lot about disaster preparedness,
and about how GREAT it is
when everything is humming along
normally.




Water has an orderly way of flowing in, and out.
We call them tides.
When a surge or energy moves through the sea disrupting that order, there are interesting eddies of hydro-force that result.

The water here in the harbor looked "stippled" and confused following the arrival of the first (blessedly small) tsunami wave and it's follow-ups. And it behaved most unusually.

We could not pull closer to the dock with two adults leaning into the ropes for a strangely long time. Usually momentum begins to accrue immediately. Or the normal sway of the tethered boat will metronome back and forth in the sea's rhythm. But this time, the boat just stood off and refused to budge. VERY unusual. Other boaters had unaccustomed difficulty pulling into their own slips.

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Of course, there was a lot of work, carrying, pulling on ropes,
surfing the surging adrenaline.

Yesterday I had to sleep most of the day.

For me to go on line is more than pushing a button.

The modem must be plugged into the on-board phone line.
Then it's power cord is plugged in.
While I wait for the lights to stop blinking on that, I pull out this laptop and plug it into the power and DSL. . .

I simply couldn't face the simple work for a few days, but I'm back.

You were each missed. So, let's. . .

RE-SET!

ALOHA,
cloudia

Chile Earthquake May Have Shortened Days on Earth

The massive 8.8 earthquake that struck Chile may have changed the entire Earth's rotation and shortened the length of days on our planet, a NASA scientist said Monday.

The quake, the seventh strongest earthquake in recorded history, hit Chile Saturday and should have shortened the length of an Earth day by 1.26 milliseconds, according to research scientist Richard Gross at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

"Perhaps more impressive is how much the quake shifted Earth's axis," NASA officials said in a Monday update.

The computer model used by Gross and his colleagues to determine the effects of the Chile earthquake effect also found that it should have moved Earth's figure axis by about 3 inches (8 cm or 27 milliarcseconds).

The Earth's figure axis is not the same as its north-south axis, which it spins around once every day at a speed of about 1,000 mph (1,604 kph).

The figure axis is the axis around which the Earth's mass is balanced. It is offset from the Earth's north-south axis by about 33 feet (10 meters).

Strong earthquakes have altered Earth's days and its axis in the past. The 9.1 Sumatran earthquake in 2004, which set off a deadly tsunami, should have shortened Earth's days by 6.8 microseconds and shifted its axis by about 2.76 inches (7 cm, or 2.32 milliarcseconds).

One Earth day is about 24 hours long. Over the course of a year, the length of a day normally changes gradually by one millisecond. It increases in the winter, when the Earth rotates more slowly, and decreases in the summer, Gross has said in the past.

The Chile earthquake was much smaller than the Sumatran temblor, but its effects on the Earth are larger because of its location. Its epicenter was located in the Earth's mid-latitudes rather than near the equator like the Sumatran event.

The fault responsible for the 2010 Chile quake also slices through Earth at a steeper angle than the Sumatran quake's fault, NASA scientists said.

"This makes the Chile fault more effective in moving Earth's mass vertically and hence more effective in shifting Earth's figure axis," NASA officials said.

Gross said his findings are based on early data available on the Chile earthquake. As more information about its characteristics are revealed, his prediction of its effects will likely change.


33 comments:

  1. I didn't realize it would have quite so much impact on Earth's rotation and stuff. Interesting. Glad you are all ok.

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  2. very informative blog. keep it up

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  3. Great post, Cloudia. Glad to know you are all safe and back on board. All is right with the world, even if we do get older faster now.

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  4. Glad you are o.k. and back to normal. Interesting information from NASA.

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  5. Those are an amazing set of facts you've given us Cloudia. I never thought about all this before. So very glad that you and everyone out there are okay and slowly getting back to normal.

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  6. 2 car caravan, huh? LOL. Glad you could park on the 3rd floor. Also glad the excitement is over.

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  7. You said it, Sistah! Give me normalcy any day.
    So glad you gathered the wits and the energy for all you had to do.
    Rest well. Glad you are down from the high place.

    Christians here are talking about how shortened days and a wobbling earth are prophecies in Revelation.

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  8. Aloha!!! So glad to see you again!

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  9. So happy that ya'll are safe and that everything turned out the way it did! You are in my thoughts, cher! Aloha!

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  10. I was wondering how you fared. Thanks for letting us all know!

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  11. I am glad your safe and sound. We out here in NZ also had the big warnings, some coastal settlements were evacuated inland for a day and some narrow straits in our Marlborough Sounds were closed to all shipping, but although, as with you, the sea acted unnaturally for a time the waves were rather small and fortunately arrived at low tide so did no damage at all as far as I am aware.
    Must be a lot of hassle for you to leave your ship and race inland and up 20 floors high to escape.

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  12. Hi Cloudia

    I wondered what was happening in Waikiki as we were awaiting the wave here. A friend, who with us, is the Director of the Kahala Hilton Apts so was in constant contact with staff there, evacuating the elderly from lower floors...I imagine you have all been given a drill to follow.

    Friends in Australia said they went to the beach to watch - with the flat beaches and huge continental shelf a tsunami must be treated differently there. They are now being flooded in our home town - torrential rain bringing a year's worth of rain in a few days...

    Happy days

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  13. very cool example of what blogging is all about,

    jc

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  14. Glad you are doing Ok. Few seconds late or early? Doesn't matter much. Love the Blooming picture agin. Thank you for Posting

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  15. Very glad to hear you are okay, Cloudia.

    Pearl

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  16. You fooled me with that candy coloured photo :) I am so glad you are well, and Miss Kitty too. How's the boat?
    And thank you for all that information. Sweet sleeps now!

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  17. Dear Cloudia, first of all am glad to read about everything being fine with you all.
    Further down into the "spiral" words went to become few, maybe reaching even less.
    Thanking you for having so many times the finger on the pulse of life, near as well as far and wide - glad I had enough time to visit you tonight.
    (Deep in thoughts, about the long term results of this shift) Wishing you all a wonderful Thursday.

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  18. So glad to hear that you're okay. Thanks for the interesting information from the NASA. I didn't realize that it will make such an impact on Earth's rotation. I am hoping and praying that the survivors of the recent earthquake in Chile will get through this difficult time.

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  19. Happy to see you again , God bless all us.

    Regards

    Dinesh Chandra

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  20. I am so happy to hear that you are well and feeling better educated. These things can be unnerving to say the least. So glad you took precautions! I did not realize that you live on a boat!

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  21. I'm so glad you and your family are safe Cloudia...Yay!!!

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  22. glad to have you back unharmed!
    impressive information about how earthquakes shorten our days!

    namaste /\
    aloha!

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  23. I am glad you are safe and have returned back to normal.

    I had read about the Earth's axis...

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  24. Wondering if the change in axis will affect weather even more? It has been a strange year. dh says the lost of that millisecond has been throwing him off all day.

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  25. It's always something but glad all is well my friend.
    <><

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  26. So glad you all have survived and life is somewhat back to normal. I know you will make that life beautiful in spite of this nuisance.

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  27. Wild news about our planet. Yikes.

    I wish my co-workers could see the first quote you posted. ;-)

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  28. All these wild events. I have been thinking of you. I am glad you are safe.

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  29. hi cloudia,
    I came to you blog after seeing your comment on shadow's space. I heard the same report and was relieved by the tone of the voices in the interview.

    I have found that there are times when the tone of those speaking actually carries a little weight in the meaning. Ha!

    Seriously though, I did catch the part towards the end when he said the time per day shortened was an estimate calculated with the data available at that specific point in time.

    Glad to hear the atmosphere where you are has less stress again. I am sure it has been a crazy couple of weeks.

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