Climate Change May Be Causing Earth’s Poles To Shift
Source: Huffington Post
The position of Earth’s axis has dramatically shifted, likely because of melting ice sheets (fueled by climate change) and natural changes in water storage on land, according to a new study in the journal Science Advances.
Erik Ivins, senior research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and co-author of the study published on Friday, told The Huffington Post that the movement of water on Earth’s surface affects the planet’s distribution of mass — and its axis — much like adding weight to a spinning top.
“If you considered a spinning top, and then placed a piece of chewing gum on the top, it would start spinning around a new axis,” Ivins said in an email. “On the Earth, since water can be transported in and out of the oceans to the land — affecting global mean sea-levels — this also changes the moments of inertia, in exact analogy to the piece of chewing gum on a spinning top.”
The shifting axis might add to the effects of climate change on our stressed-out planet: Global temperatures are getting hotter. Weather events are becoming more extreme. Sea levels are rising. . .
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/earth-poles-climate-change_us_5706c52ee4b0537661892db4
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