Global Warming Shifts the Earth's Poles

ananyo writes "Global warming is changing the location of Earth's geographic poles, according to a study published this week. Researchers at the University of Texas, Austin, report that increased melting of the Greenland ice sheet — and to a lesser degree, ice loss in other parts of the globe — helped to shift the North Pole several centimeters east each year since 2005. From 1982 to 2005, the pole drifted southeast towards northern Labrador, Canada, at a rate of about 2 milliarcseconds — or roughly 6 centimetres — per year. But in 2005, the pole changed course and began galloping east towards Greenland at a rate of more than 7 milliarcseconds per year (abstract). The results suggest that tracking polar shifts can serve as a check on current estimates of ice loss. Scientists can locate the north and south poles to within 0.03 milliarcseconds by using Global Positioning System measurements to determine the angle of Earth's spin. When mass is lost in one part of a spinning sphere, its spin axis will tilt directly towards the position of the loss — exactly as the team observed for Greenland."

Comments

backward nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

gee it couldn't possibly be the major earthquakes that have altered the earth's axis. it couldn't possibly be internal earth forces. it couldn't possibly have to do with the sun. it couldn't possibly be a part of the natural cycle of the earth's wobble. it certainly couldn't be any sort of other external force acting on the planet.

nope, it's gotta be global warming. there's no way that the earth's wobble combined with solar influence could be leading to altered climate. nope, it's gotta be the carbon dioxide you're exhaling, so you clearly need to be taxed for it. that'll fix it for sure!

Re:The opposite might also be true

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. Global warming may or may not be caused by humans. Perhaps in part. Regardless, we should focus on cutting pollution even if global warming is not man-made.

Re:The opposite might also be true

[serviscope_minor]

It could very well be that the glaciers melt/freeze due to slight shifts in the poles' positions and variations in the Sun's output.

Yeah it could be. I suppose since we have no way of measuring the sun's luminous output with any precision at all we're all just guessing here.

Re:The opposite might also be true

[SirGarlon]

Let's face it people, there is nothing we can do, accept it and deal with it.

There are plenty of things we can do. There's very little we *want* to do.

Re:Surface Drift Question

[EmagGeek]

The crust does drift, and because the crust does not have uniform thickness, crustal drift changes the center of gravity and angular momentum of the Earth, and also shifts the poles.

Also, if there is a major earthquake that sinks a large portion of crust any appreciable amount, the rate of rotation AND center of gravity change, and poles shift some more.

There are many many vectors of change for the position of the poles. To assume that all of the observed drift is due to the change in mass of a single ice sheet is ludicrous. But, we're talking about the chicken little global warming narrative here, so anything goes.

Re:The opposite might also be true

[Vintermann]

I'm afraid your sarcasm is going to go straight over the heads of slashdot's resident climate denialists.

Re:The opposite might also be true

[SirGarlon]

The fact that bad ideas dominate the set of proposed solutions does not make the problem invalid.

This is awesome

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

Awesome in how much of an epic fail this "scientific" research.

Regardless of global warming, I don't need a geology degree to know the geographic poles shift constantly, and if you measured their location over millions of years, you could realize that there is so much involved in where they are located, like continental drift or earthquakes or ice ages, to realize this is a completely meaningless study.

But of course retarded greenists are just going to add this to their list of "proof" about how the planet is in a state of disaster because someone linked something meaningless to global warming and other people will over sensationalize what a pole shift will mean to the planet (you know, like the BBC).

I don't deny global warming, I just want to be realistic about it and find ways of dealing with its existence rather than looking for blame or wasting money and time trying to prove it. I also don't believe this is the end of the planet just one of the many changes this planet has gone through and survived.

Global warming is a geo-political issue, period. Its not a global catastrophe to nature.

Re:This is awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you even look at the article before assuming that all scientists are idiots who didn't know that the poles shift constantly? If you had you would have read this:

Scientists have long known that the locations of Earth’s geographic poles are not fixed. Over the course of the year, they shift seasonally as Earth’s distributions of snow, rain and humidity change. “Usually [the shift] is circular, with a wobble,” says Chen.

But underlying the seasonal motion is a yearly motion that is thought to be driven in part by continental drift. It was the change in that motion that caught the attention of Chen and his colleagues, who used data collected by NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) to determine whether ice loss had shifted and accelerated the yearly polar drift.

It appears that the scientists involved know almost as much as you about this subject! In fact, they may even know a bit more considering that they have a habit of reading up on a subject before making sweeping proclaimations.

Global Warming my Arse...

[PortHaven]

Okay, for the past five years or so I've experience some of the most frigid winters. We had an extremely cold winter. Followed by a winter with record snow (4 ft in two days). Followed by a year with a mild winter but a huge snow in fall and a late frost in April. Then this past winter we've had snow flurries on about 1/2 the days. And now, in the middle of may we had a frost wipe out my second planting of sweet potatoes and peppers.

This is well past the Farmer's Almanac.

So seriously, F-GW, F-AlGore, F-Idiots who shout doom and gloom. I'm going to light my fire pit, burn some carbon filled wood. And pour used motor oil over it just to help warm things up.

***

EXPLANATIONS for Polar Shift.

1. Global Warming, heck maybe they're right. Maybe the ice melting is rotating the planet.
  (Or maybe the planet rotating is melting the ice, though I would think that would mean the ice would merely shift directions.)

2. Maybe Three Gorges Dam in China

3. Maybe Fukishima earthquake, tidal wave, what not also contributed to the shift.

4. Perhaps we're applying the sure and steady scientific error. Where we assume things ALWAYS happen at the same rate. So if we see that the pole moved 1 meter in 300 years. We assume that it moved a centimeter a year. Rather than having any proof that the average movement is consistent. It may have moved 3 centimeters one year and 1/2 a centimeter another year.

5. If we used logic, we'd quit feeding the poor, quit having wars and devote ALL of our money to get us to a second planet and solar system. I mean seriously, what's the point of saving the poor only to have them wiped out by an asteroid. Just saying....Bruce Willis can't save us every time. I mean yes, he stopped Armageddon, and Cobra...but really. Can we rely on him to bail our butts out of every mess?

Re:Global Warming my Arse...

[Dixie_Flatline]

Congratulations, you just demonstrated how little you know about climate science and global climate change. Colder winters and longer winters are both explainable and predictable depending on where you are. For instance, changes in the currents in the ocean may direct colder water towards the UK and northern Europe, thereby actually making for colder winters and more snow. In North America this year, the melting Arctic icecap (which melted much more than usual last summer) added extra heat to the northern oceans, which affected the jetstream, pushing it south. That dragged cold air from the Arctic down much further south.

Climate is wild and woolly, and it's hard to know exactly what's going to happen, but we know enough of what's going to happen and what's happening that most of the complaints you're going to come up with can be explained by Science. And not just some random scientist, but peer-reviewed and published science.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/03/25/scientists-long-winter-in-u-s-the-result-of-melting-arctic-ice-cap/

We know the poles shift. In fact, that's IN THE SUMMARY. You didn't even have to read the article to see that shifting geographic poles are well known. But they're shifting faster, and NASA's GRACE experiment is also helping measure the subtle shifts in gravity associated with shifting mass. It all seems to be correlating well. Someone else here has even already pointed out this comment in the article:

"The results suggest that tracking polar shifts can serve as a check on current estimates of ice loss."

Are you interested in science or not? Then sit and read and understand the science. Don't go off on a rant before you know a single damn thing of what you're talking about.

Re:The opposite might also be true

[JasterBobaMereel]

Changes like this have happened time and time again ... and the world will continue and life will continue

The problem is it might not be habitable by 7billion humans ... this *will* affect you

Re:The opposite might also be true

[roman_mir]

No, you'll get the real 'oops' when you will realise that you didn't check that 'Post Anonymously' box.... twice.

Re:How will it make it worse?

[ShanghaiBill]

Dramatically increased cost of living causing crippling economic distress on the poor.

... which causes them to have lower life expectancy, and higher infant mortality. So they have more kids to compensate, and the population goes up. Even if a Kenyan emits a tenth of the CO2 of an American, if they have three times the birthrate they will still "win" after two generations. In the long run, the best way to fight global warming is to control population, and the best way to do that is to fight poverty and provide better healthcare and education to poor, high-birthrate countries. I have read that if every dollar spent on solar energy subsidies had been spent on attic insulation it would have provided ten times as much CO2 reduction, and if it had been spent on third world vaccinations it would provide a hundred times as much.

Re:The opposite might also be true

[Sockatume]

It's a bit of a stretch to suppose that there's some other force changing the Earth's angular momentum in just such a way as to be the same as that expected from the mass transfer from the Greenland ice sheet to the oceans.

The causal link is freshman physics

[Sockatume]

If you take the known mass transfer between the ice sheets and the ocean, you can predict its effect upon the rotational axis of the Earth. You can then compare that prediction to what's actually observed by measurements of the location of the rotational axis of the Earth. This is what the paper did.

Re:The opposite might also be true

[Dixie_Flatline]

Or to paraphrase, "Brakes are gone...no point in steering!"

There's lots of stuff we can do to make sure that we're not making things worse. We know we're making SOME things worse, so why don't we stop it with those things?

Climate changes. But climate changes tend to happen on geological timescales, barring utter catastrophe. I'm sure the K-T Boundary impact changed the climate, but that was a world-changing catastrophic impact that effectively lit the atmosphere on fire for a few hours. I haven't seen one of those recently, but I've seen what humans can do given some time and ambition.

Stop it with the calls to inaction. We've got enough evidence that it's a good idea to hedge our bets and start cutting back on the needless waste that we're so good at. We can do better, so let's do better.

Global warming causes everything!

[BitZtream]

Is there anything that isn't caused by global warming? It's getting silly at this point.