Global Warming Could Cause Tilt in Earth’s Axis
August 26, 2009 · Print This Article
Oceans warmed by the rise in greenhouse gas levels could cause the Earth’s axis to tilt, according to a new study by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Researchers say the tilt would be significant enough to create a large shift in the distribution of the Earth’s mass, especially when combined with the tilt being caused by the melting of Greenland’s ice.
From New Scientist:
The researchers modelled the changes that would occur if moderate projections made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – a doubling of carbon dioxide levels between 2000 and 2100 – were to become reality.
The team found that as the oceans warm and expand, more water will be pushed up and onto the Earth’s shallower ocean shelves. Over the next century, the subtle effect is expected to cause the northern pole of Earth’s spin axis to shift by roughly 1.5 centimetres per year in the direction of Alaska and Hawaii.
Luckily, the effect is expected to be relatively small, and shouldn’t induce any negative feedback in the planet’s climate. It just needs to be taken into account when interpreting shifts in Earth’s axis.
Still, this should be a strong message to those who still insist that we insignificant little humans can’t affect the planet we live on to a great extent. We may be relatively unimportant in the scheme of things, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t capable of causing some serious changes.
Link [New Scientist]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons
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i think going green is good….cuz i like verede from the world and would be angry if it would run out….
Incredible! I didn’t think that a change in the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere due to our activities could actually have a noticeable physical effect on the globe itself.
It makes you wonder what other subtle effects our activities are having on the planet and if these effects are disturbing the delicate processes that are maintaining ecological equilibrium.
hmmmm … I love this backwards analysis! The earth’s orbit constantly wobbles … the earth’s magnetic core/poles constantly move … CLIMATE is always changing due to the shift of the orbit and the shift of the pole … NOT the other way around.. The combination of orbit and magnetic flux is what affects the rotating patterns of the winds and oceans. The SUN (remember that big bright HOT thing in the daytime sky?) is the SOURCE of ENERGY that creates heat. The planet is in a COOL-DOWN due to the minimal sunspot activity – man cannot warmiup an ice age!
Ahhh…never mind – you have to have intelligence to actually think for yourselves!
What a bunch of brainwashed morons you people really are! Do you really believe that when a magician saws a person in half for a stageshow that he actually cuts them in half and then somehow restores them together at the end? Well you must do if you can believe this claptrap – hey the earth is flat and the sun goes around it ! Trust me – the end of the world is NOT nigh.
When the axis tip/or move. We will be in great danger. The flooding of the coast. The snow in the north. The valcano in the south. How unprepaired are we?!? Has the govt. prepaired for the for there own and not the rest of us? Is this the like the cold war- undergroud protection and every person for them selves?