Global warming is changing the way the Earth wobbles on its polar axis, a new NASA study has found, highlighting the far-ranging impacts the warming atmosphere has on the planet.
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The study, released on Friday in the Science Advances journal, found that melting ice sheets, especially in Greenland, are redistributing the weight on Earth. This in turn has caused both the North Pole and the wobble, which is called polar motion, to change course.
The change is a new phenomena. Scientists and navigators have been accurately tracking the true pole and polar motion since 1899, and for almost the entire 20th century the motion migrated a bit toward Canada.
However, that has changed this century, and now motion is moving toward the United Kingdom, according to the study's lead author, Surendra Adhikari of NASA Jet Propulsion Lab, who said "the recent shift from the 20th-century direction is very dramatic."
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Scientists says the data is meaningful as it shows the extent to which human activity is changing the Earth.
"This highlights how real and profoundly large an impact humans are having on the planet," said Jonathan Overpeck, professor of geosciences at the University of Arizona, who was not part of the study.
Jianli Chen, a senior research scientist at the University of Texas’ Center for Space Research, said the change is “nothing to worry about” and “it is just another interesting effect of climate change.”
Since 2003, Greenland has lost on average more than 600 trillion pounds of ice a year, and that affects the way the Earth wobbles in a manner similar to a figure skater lifting one leg while spinning, said NASA scientist Eirk Ivins, the study's co-author.
West Antarctica loses 275 trillion tonnes of ice and East Antarctica gains about 165 trillion tonnes of ice each year, helping tilt the wobble further, he added.