Climate crisis has shifted the Earth's axis, study shows

[turbinetree]

Massive melting of glaciers has tilted the planet’s rotation, showing the impact of human activities

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The massive melting of glaciers as a result of global heating has caused marked shifts in the Earth’s axis of rotation since the 1990s, research has shown. It demonstrates the profound impact humans are having on the planet, scientists said.

The planet’s geographic north and south poles are the point where its axis of rotation intersects the surface, but they are not fixed. Changes in how the Earth’s mass is distributed around the planet cause the axis, and therefore the poles, to move.

In the past, only natural factors such as ocean currents and the convection of hot rock in the deep Earth contributed to the drifting position of the poles. But the new research shows that since the 1990s, the loss of hundreds of billions of tonnes of ice a year into the oceans resulting from the climate crisis has caused the poles to move in new directions.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/23/climate-crisis-has-shifted-the-earths-axis-study-shows

[Cracklin Charlie]

1. Imagine an ice cube in a glass of water.

Does it remain still as it slowly melts?

No, it tumbles and rolls, as the ice changes state, from solid to liquid. Shifting of the earth’s axis was always my biggest concern about climate change.

[turbinetree]

2. Exactly...

[2naSalit]

3. It's become obvious

In the northern latitudes. The way the position of the sun has changed in just a couple years is startling.

[turbinetree]

4. Exactly......

[Bernardo de La Paz]

6. No it has not. You have not. Read the article. You cannot notice that amount of shift

The poles have shifted 4 meters in 40 years. That's 10 cm a year, or about 8 inches (in 'Murrican) in "a couple years".

Half the earth's circumference is 20,000 kilometers. 20 cm is one part in 10,000,000.

One part in 10 million of 90 degrees is 0.000009 degrees or 0.0324 seconds of arc.

The human eye can resolve about 1 arc minute. To observe this "obvious" shift you would have to have unaided optical resolution 1850 times that of the human eye and remember over the course of two years.

Even if we allow that it might be 17 times faster in the last two years, that would still require you to be at least 100 times superhuman to observe this.

You did not, you have not, you cannot.

[-misanthroptimist]

10. Thank you. Nicely done. nt

[Disaffected]

7. Huh??

[FakeNoose]

5. It's going to affect prevailing winds, tides, ocean currents

... not to mention the rising sea levels as the glaciers and icebergs are melting.

What would happen to northern Europe if the warm Atlantic Gulf Stream suddenly stops bringing the warm weather to them. They would freeze up almost overnight.

[Hortensis]

8. So maybe it's not age that's making me feel slightly unsteady on my feet?

Good news.

[BobTheSubgenius]

9. Along with melting and collapsing glaciers is the massive shift in groundwater caused by extraction,

then most of it draining into the ocean. Another article said that California agriculture alone, between the years of 1920 and 2013, pumped enough water out of the CA aquifer to supply every human on earth with a 30-year personal supply. As a result of draining them so alarmingly, many areas have collapsed and will never be an aquifer again, no matter what. The loss of capacity would provide every person who had ever lived a 55-gallon barrel of water.

The numbers are beyond staggering. The 1920-2013 period mentioned above removed an estimated 18 trillion tons of water from CA's underground reserve. To put that into perspective, if you had people that could each lift a 1 tonne container of water, you'd need 18 trillion of them to lift all of it. There are probably other ways of expressing that measurement.


(Not So) Fun Fact: It takes about a gallon of water to produce an almond, and about 5 to produce a walnut. If you like nuts, enjoy them while you can.