Re: [Phys-l] earth's rotation

[Bernard Cleyet <bernardcleyet@redshift.com>]

I wasn't totally serious, of course.  I understood the question to be a 
parallel (almost) universe in which the only skew was the rotation of 
the Earth WRT its revolution.

It's not obvious to me that climate would be much changed if the orbit 
reversed also (WRT the "fixed" stars).  Please elaborate.

bc

p.s. if the moon's orbit reversed, I suspect the tides would then appear 
the same?  Which, perhaps, answers one part of my question, since the 
Earth if far from symmetrical.

David Bowman wrote:

> Regarding bc's admonition:
>
>  
>
> > David!
> >
> > Don't be difficult.  You could suggest he means a rotation change so the
> > defining vector was reversed. i.e. down WRT the orbital plane.
> >
> > bc admits to, too often, being difficult, especially w/ Gate Keeper.
> >    
>
> Well, I really wasn't trying (very hard) to be difficult.  What threw me, besides the part about East & West in the original question, "What would happen if the Earth rotated from East to West rather than West to East?" was the part about "...the Sun rising in the West rather than the East".  This really distracted me from the essence of the underlying real question which, as I discovered only after reading the response from Ken Caviness, seems to be, 'What would happen to the world's climates if the Earth's spin angular momentum was negated (where the whole earth--including atmosphere, oceans, loose surface objects, convective motions in the outer core & mantle, etc. participated together in the reversal of motion)?'  I'm not sure if the Earth's orbital motion about the Sun or the Moon about the Earth were also supposed to be reversed, or not.  There are different effects to be expected if those motions are to be reversed than if they are not.
>
> David Bowman
>
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