{"id":104675,"date":"2021-05-05T10:48:45","date_gmt":"2021-05-05T05:18:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=104675"},"modified":"2021-05-05T12:13:12","modified_gmt":"2021-05-05T06:43:12","slug":"climate-change-is-shifting-earths-axis-of-rotation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/climate-change-is-shifting-earths-axis-of-rotation\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate Change is Shifting Earth\u2019s Axis of Rotation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Synopsis<\/strong>-According to a new study, loss of water on land is shifting the earth\u2019s axis of rotation. The reasons behind loss of water are ice melting and human-induced factors [such as excessive groundwater pumping].<\/p>\n<h5><strong>Introduction-<\/strong><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li>According to a study published in the Journal Geophysical Research letters, Earth&#8217;s axis of rotation has been rotating faster than normal since the 1990s due to the significant melting of glaciers caused by global warming.<\/li>\n<li>According to NASA, the spin axis drifted around 10 cm every year in the 20th century. It means, in a year, polar motion exceeds 10 metres.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><strong>Concept of earth&#8217;s axis of rotation and polar motion<\/strong><\/h5>\n<figure id=\"attachment_104994\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-104994\" style=\"width: 492px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-104994 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/nasa-earth-axis.jpg?resize=492%2C487&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"492\" height=\"487\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/nasa-earth-axis.jpg?w=492&amp;ssl=1 492w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/nasa-earth-axis.jpg?resize=300%2C297&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 492px) 100vw, 492px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-104994\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: NASA website<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Earth\u2019s axis of rotation &#8211;<\/strong> It is the line along which Earth spins around itself as it revolves around the Sun.\n<ul>\n<li>The\u00a0points\u00a0on which the\u00a0axis intersects the planet\u2019s surface\u00a0are the\u00a0geographical north and south poles<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Polar motion-<\/strong> Changes in the distribution of Earth&#8217;s mass around the globe also changes the earth&#8217;s axis of rotation and as the axis moves, the poles move as well. This is known as polar motion.<\/li>\n<li>Earth\u2019s rotation decreases if its mass is moved away from the rotation axis (From poles towards equators) and vice versa.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><strong>Key finding of the study-<\/strong><\/h5>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li>Firstly, in the mid-1990s, melting glaciers redistributed a large amount of water. It changed the direction of the routine <strong>polar wander<\/strong> to turn eastward and also accelerate it.<\/li>\n<li>Secondly, the average drift speed rose by around 17 times between 1995 and 2020.<\/li>\n<li>Thirdly, the primary cause of polar drift is water loss from the Polar Regions, with contributions from water loss in nonpolar regions, which describes the eastward shift of polar drift.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>What are the major factors causing the shift in Earth\u2019s axis of rotation? <\/strong><\/h5>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Mass redistribution affects the rotation of the earth on and within the planet, such as shifts in soil, ice sheets, seas, and mantle movement. The following are the main forces that contribute to the mass redistribution-<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Melting of glaciers <\/strong>-Climate change has caused billions of tonnes of glacial ice to melt into oceans. This has caused the Earth\u2019s poles to move in new directions.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Groundwater pumping &#8211;<\/strong> The excessive use of groundwater has caused changes in groundwater storage in non-glacial areas. Further, it led to polar wander as most of it eventually joins the sea, thus redistributing the planet\u2019s mass.\n<ul>\n<li><strong>For example-<\/strong> The changes in groundwater mass in areas like California, northern Texas, Beijing and northern India, areas that have been pumping large amounts of groundwater for agricultural use.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Way forward-<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The shifting of the Earth&#8217;s axis as a result of climate change demonstrates how much active human action can affect changes in the mass of water on land.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source- <a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/explained-what-new-research-says-about-climate-change-causing-a-shift-in-earths-axis-7299258\/\">The Indian Express<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Synopsis-According to a new study, loss of water on land is shifting the earth\u2019s axis of rotation. The reasons behind loss of water are ice melting and human-induced factors [such as excessive groundwater pumping]. Introduction- According to a study published in the Journal Geophysical Research letters, Earth&#8217;s axis of rotation has been rotating faster than&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/climate-change-is-shifting-earths-axis-of-rotation\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Climate Change is Shifting Earth\u2019s Axis of Rotation<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,8043,9],"tags":[1304,1577],"class_list":["post-104675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-current-affairs-cat","category-public","tag-env_4","tag-geog_6","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":2,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1699077027},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104675\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}