Researchers began to study the shift in the Earth’s geographic pole in detail. As a result of the research, experts who found that the axis of the world shifted 80 centimeters to the east, attributed the reason for this to the withdrawal of underground waters.
The axis around which the Earth rotates is not fixed and static. The Earth drifts and wobbles as it spins on its axis of rotation, an imaginary line running through the North and South Poles. These movements in the axis of rotation are called pole wandering. It is known that the North Pole draws a circle 10 meters wide every year.
NASA FINDS THAT THE AXIS OF TURN IS SHIPPING 4 INCHES A YEAR
According to the American Space Research Administration (NASA), it was found that in the 20th century, the Earth’s axis of rotation was shifted by 4 cm per year.
Recent research has found that the climate crisis is causing a shift in the Earth’s rotation.
However, the effect of groundwater on this shift could not be fully determined.
The lead author of the study, at Seoul National University Earth Sciences Education, Prof. Ki-Weon Seo said, “There have been great changes in the Earth’s rotation axis in the history of the Earth. However, our study emphasizes that the consumption of groundwater is so important that it causes the axis of rotation to shift.”
2 TRILLION TONS OF WATER WITHDRAWAL…
Global climate models had found that the consumption of groundwater contributed to sea-level rise.
According to this, 2 trillion tons of water was withdrawn from the ground between 1993 and 2010. These waters, which are used for purposes such as drinking and agricultural irrigation, are mostly discharged into the sea after being used. This means that a fairly large body of water has been displaced by human intervention.
SEA LEVELS ARE RISING
Previous estimates had estimated that this displacement raised sea level by 6 mm.
The new research, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, a scientific publication in the field of geophysics, confirms this prediction by examining the change in the Earth’s spin pole.
The distribution of water on the earth changes the distribution of the weight of the transported mass.
Researchers liken it to adding a small amount of weight to a spinning top. They note that when the water body on the Earth changes its location, there is also a slight change in its rotational motion.
To understand this change, the researchers tested the observed shift in the Earth’s rotation axis with computer models.
Accordingly, when only ice and melting of glaciers were taken into account, there was a 78.5 cm opening in the slip observed today.
The research linked this gap to groundwater.
SEASONS CAN CHANGE…
prof. “We found that groundwater consumption is shifting the earth’s pole 64 degrees east at a rate of 4.36 cm per year. This trend will continue,” Seo said. says.
“I am very happy to have found the unexplained cause of the spin pole shift,” said Prof. SEO continues:
“On the other hand, as an Earth resident and a father, it worries and surprises me to see that groundwater recession is another cause of sea level rise.”
Surendra Adhikari, a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told the American Geological Society that the earth’s axis of rotation changes a few meters per year, and that the depletion of groundwater does not justify the risk of changing the seasons.
Adhikari is one of the scientists who found that the recent major cause of the shifts in the spin axis is the loss of Greenland’s ice floes.
However, in terms of geological time zones, the spin pole shift could have implications for climate, Adhikari says.