Empirical Earth · Shape, Curvature & the Horizon

Water — "level," the meniscus & the cold deep ocean

The claim

“Water always lies flat and can’t curve over a ball; a meniscus even curves up.”

What is measured

Open water curves down about 8 inches per mile² (h ≈ d²/2R), measured by canal, lake and ocean surveys. It is not the flat plane Rowbotham claimed.

What would show this is wrong

a large, still body of water measured to lie on a flat plane instead of a ball’s equipotential surface.

Sources

  1. The geoid & mean sea level. NOAA National Geodetic Survey; ESA GOCE / NASA GRACE satellite gravimetry — sea level as a gravitational equipotential with ≈ −106 to +85 m undulations. NOAA NGS link
  2. Surface tension & capillary length. de Gennes, Brochard-Wyart & Quéré, Capillarity and Wetting Phenomena ; water capillary length √(γ/ρg) ≈ 2.7 mm. capillary length link
  3. Deep-ocean temperature & thermohaline circulation. NOAA / Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution — Antarctic Bottom Water and North Atlantic Deep Water; abyssal temperatures 0–4 °C. thermohali link
  4. Earth's surface energy budget. Davies & Davies, "Earth's surface heat flux" (Solid Earth, 2010) — global geothermal flux ≈ 0.087 W/m² (≈47 TW); IPCC AR6 / NASA CERES mean solar input ≈ 340 W link
  5. Geoid undulation. The geoid (mean sea level) deviates from the reference ellipsoid by roughly +85 m near Iceland to −106 m off southern India — a total range under 200 m, mapped by satellite link
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