What I find interesting is that the end of the article admits that this cannot be an effect of global warming. This is despite the fact that the title’s wording is intended to suggest a link between the two.

Unless they’ve changed the title, I don’t think the wording is intended to suggest a link–the title says “weather”, and “weather” is not climate. Instead, I think they tried to avoid misleading. The article seems to be talking about weather events over millions of years so technically replacing the word “weather” with “climate” would give a more accurate title. That fact that they went with the less accurate title may indicate they’re trying to avoid the very thing you accuse them of–i.e. irresponsible yellow journalism. Imagine the troll influx we’d see if they used the word “climate” in the title.

Incidentally, I’m not surprised climate could affect plates, but I am surprised they found a way to measure it (assuming their methods stand up to scrutiny).

Krugwaffle: right indeed. I took the liberty of making it a bit more accurate if you don’t mind.

1. Figure out where you want to be in the political power structure in 5-10 years.
2. Decide what ‘scientific discovery’ will threaten your political or religious ideology.
3. Find an experiment that will contradict this scientific discovery.
4. Ignore every other indication to the contrary.
5. Publish, rant, lie on every blog, radio show, tv-network, think-tank website available.*
6. Repeat step 5 as necessary.

*Forget about publishing in real science journals. You need actual knowledge, not misconceptions, myths and total fabrications. Yeah, I know…that’s very unfair. Who made them the guardians of reality? My gut should count just as much as their facts.

The densest elements such as osmium (the king of density), gold and platinum (about twice as dense as lead) tungsten, uranium and other heavy weights would have sunk to the core a long time ago making them relatively scarce on the Earth’s surface. What we get is what has been belched up in volcanoes.

Some of these dense elements such as uranium are fissionable and are responsible for providing sufficient heat to drive plate tectonics, volcanoes, and generate our magnetic field keeping the Earth alive.

Plate tectonics and volcanism provide and replenish our atmosphere, which is constantly leaking away from Earth and blown away by solar winds. Our atmosphere and magnetic field shields Earth’s surface from deadly excessive solar radiation and ionized particles.

In the far distant future, when the fissionable materials run out, the core will cool and the tectonic plates will freeze in place, volcanoes will stop erupting and Earth will become a dead, Mars-like planet devoid of sufficient atmosphere to breathe and filter solar radiation. The oceans will evaporate. The generator that provides our magnetic field will wind down to a stop leaving residual magnetism too weak to deflect solar particles.

Be thankful for a live Earth. It has provided well for us even though it sometimes gets a bit violent.

In the end, the author should be blacklisted from any further publishing by Discover Magazine for irresponsible yellow journalism.

http://www.internet-privacy.pro.tc

The NEW scientific process:

1. Figure out where you want to be in the political power structure in 5-10 years.
2. Decide what ‘scientific discovery’ will provide that boost to your status.
3. Find an experiment that will have this scientific discovery as it’s outcome.
4. Ignore every other indication to the contrary.
5. Publish, publish, publish.
6. Repeat step 5 as necessary.

I’d imagine the “water weight” would be measureable via pressure differences on the ocean floor. Not sure how we’d be able to tell if a plate is expanding though.

By the way, I suspect that the North American plate is actually composed of two plates, the northern and southern, with the boundary along the St Lawrance River, Lake Erie, Wabash River, New Madrid, Mo., to Little Rock and Oklahoma City. Check out the USGS site for US earthquakes over time, (http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsus/), and you will note a pattern of smaller magnitude quakes along the line. A few parallel lines can also be noted, such as along the cost of Maine, New York City, Charleston WV, eastern Tennessee, to Dallas. This would also explain the formation of the Appalachian Mountains.