Climate change and global warming have caused glacial melting that led to the shift in the movement of the North and South poles since the 1990s.

Earth's poles are not unchanging and static as the planet's axis spins around in a fashion and process that even scientists do not completely understand.

Science Daily reported that the redistribution of water around the Earth's surface due to melting glaciers has influenced the polar shift.

"The faster ice melting under global warming was the most likely cause of the directional change of the polar drift in the 1990s," said study author Shanshan Deng, a researcher from the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research.

The study, entitled "Polar Drift in the 1990s Explained by Terrestrial Water Storage Changes" was published in AGU's journal for high-impact, short-format reports with immediate implications spanning all Earth and space sciences called Geophysical Research Letters.

Climate Change Has Made Earth to Shift On Its Axis Since the 1990s Study Finds
(Photo : Unsplash)
Climate Change Has Made Earth to Shift On Its Axis Since the 1990s Study Finds

What Causes a Pole Shift?

An article in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists reported that only natural factors like ocean currents and convection of hot rock in deep Earth were considered as causes of a pole shift in the past.

However, the new research adds to the information that the loss of hundreds of billions of tons of ice every year resulted in a climate crisis that led to poles moving in new directions. Scientists found that polar drift shifted from southward to eastward from 1995 to 2020 and was 17 times faster than from 1981 to 1995.

The team of researchers concluded that the poles have shifted about 4 meters in distance due to the accelerated decline of water stored on land because of glacial melting.

Moreover, the gravity data from the Grace satellite that was launched in 2002 have linked glacial melting to the polar drift in 2005 and 2012 after increase losses of sea ice. But the new study dates further dates back to the pole shift that extended the link to before the satellite's launch.

Researchers noted that melting glaciers are accounted the most for the shift but it has also contributed to the pumping up of groundwater that also influenced polar movements. Groundwater pumped up flows to the sea and redistributed its weight around the world.

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Impact of Human Activities in the Rise of Sea Level

The new research shows the impact of human activities on the rising sea levels that caused the shift on the poles since the 1990s for almost three decades.

Researcher Vincent Humphrey of the University of Zurich in Switzerland, who is not part of the study, pointed out that human activities have redistributed large amounts of water around the planet, The Guardian reported.

"It tells you how strong this mass change is - it's so big that it can change the axis of the Earth," he said.

However, despite these polar shifts, Humprey noted that it is not large enough to affect the daily lives of humans although it could change the length of a day by milliseconds.

Prof Jonathan Overpeck, at the University of Arizona, previously told the Guardian that changes in Earth's axis show the profound effect of human activities on the planet.

Due to the changes of the Earth's axis, some scientists believe that it is high time to declare a new geological epoch called the Anthropocene. This was marked during the mid-20th century, the start of high levels of carbon dioxide emissions and sea-level rise, destroying wildlife and transforming lands, and forests.

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