Who said AGW wasn't pushing science forwards?

[d000hg]

Scientists eye curvaceous Earth gravity map ? The Register

Gravity field mapping, ion drive propulsion... pretty pictures...

The European Space Agency today unveiled a new gravity map of Earth put together using data from its Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) satellite.

The "geoid" represents "the surface of an ideal global ocean in the absence of tides and currents, shaped only by gravity", ESA explains, adding: "It is a crucial reference for measuring ocean circulation, sea-level change and ice dynamics – all affected by climate change."

[TimberWolf]

I don't quite get what it is being shown there. Yellow and mountains indicating less gravity? I had expected a tendency for surface gravity to indicate less nearer the equator and greater at the poles, on average (as per the shape of the earth).

[Churchill]

I don't quite get what it is being shown there. Yellow and mountains indicating less gravity? I had expected a tendency for surface gravity to indicate less nearer the equator and greater at the poles, on average (as per the shape of the earth).

Just because the earth is fatter at the equator it doesn't necessarily follow that it is more dense.

[TimberWolf]

Just because the earth is fatter at the equator it doesn't necessarily follow that it is more dense.

true, the Earth is fatter at the equator because the net force squeezing the earth into a sphere is less there, because centrifual force is greater at the equator, though gravitational anomalies (because as you say density variations amongst other things) are bound to exist.

[d000hg]

I was interested in the idea you can use gravitational monitoring to spot tectonic plate activity.

[EternalOptimist]

hang on a minute....there's something buried there

near the ivory coast, some sort of obelisk