The melting of glaciers due to climate change led to the shear of the earth’s axis and geographic poles that occurred in the 90s of the 20th century. Scientists of the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences came to this conclusion, whose research results are published in the magazine Geophysical Research Letters. Briefly about scientific work is told in a press release on phys.org.
Experts analyzed the data obtained by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment), aimed at learning the gravitational field of the Earth. When the glacial masses are melting, the heat is redistributed, which affects the rotation of the planet and the location of its axis. This can be traced, measuring gravity in different points of the earth’s surface.
Pole shifts can occur due to geological activity in the outer layer of the land core, as well as changes in the volume of water contained on land as in the form of glaciers and groundwater. Scientists found out that due to the melting of glaciers there was a shift of the pole drift from the southern direction to the eastern. From 1995 to 2020, the drift speed also increased – at 17 times compared with 1981-1995.
Data on the loss of glaciers and pumping of groundwater indicate that the melting of ice in the polar regions is the main factor of the pole drift. Similar changes may affect the duration of the day on the scale of millisecond.