Planet Earth Wobbles As It Spins, and Now Scientists Know Why

[Calista241]

Source: Live Science

Humans are responsible for some of the wobble in Earth's spin.

Since 1899, the Earth's axis of spin has shifted about 34 feet (10.5 meters). Now, research quantifies the reasons why and finds that a third is due to melting ice and rising sea levels, particularly in Greenland — placing the blame on the doorstep of anthropogenic climate change.

Another third of the wobble is due to land masses expanding upward as the glaciers retreat and lighten their load. The final portion is the fault of the slow churn of the mantle, the viscous middle layer of the planet.

"We have provided evidence for more than one single process that is the key driver" for altering the Earth's axis, said Surendra Adhikari, an Earth system scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and a lead researcher on the new study.

Read more: https://www.livescience.com/63655-why-earth-wobbles.html

[Faux pas]

1. YIKES!

[left-of-center2012]

2. Trump's golfing techniques?

[Hassin Bin Sober]

12. It's the gravitational pull of his ass.

[KCDebbie]

3. Bull$hit! The Earth is wobbling because medicinal

Marijuana is now legal in several states!

Wakanda, FOREVER!

[Initech]

7. Marijuana? I thought it was gay marriage!

Some guy said it on TV so it must be true!

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

4. I thought it was just drunk.

"I'm perfectly okay...why do you ask?"

[King_Klonopin]

10. Go home Earth, you're drunk!

[LittleGirl]

5. OMG, eom

[LakeSuperiorView]

6. I speculated years ago that redistribution of water from glacial melt was changing the earth's spin.

I was roundly derided by people saying that it couldn't possibly happen. It's likely also slowing the spin, as water migrates to the equator and moves mass outward from the axis. The opposite of a figure skater pulling their arms in to accelerate a spin.

[SpankMe]

8. This is interesting, but shouldn't be alarming

They said that the Earth's wobble was measurably affected by the tectonic shifts that caused the severe under-sea earthquakes and tsunamis a few years ago. (Heck - the Earth was still oscillating like a bell up to two weeks after the largest quake!)

The Earth's spin and axial orientation isn't as constant and unchangeable as you think.

But, the fact that the movement of ice and water can change the mass properties of the planet sufficiently to shift its rotational axis should tell those flat-Earthers that human activities can indeed affect the Earth's natural systems.

[packman]

9. Dammit, I TOLD my wife something was wrong

and it wasn't the 5 beers in the afternoon.

[whistler162]

11. I figured it was full of Weebles!

[Rizen]

13. Weird

We've got to slow and eventually stop climate change.

[JohnnyRingo]

14. K&R

Good post, Thanx!