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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."
Part of this shift could be caused by filling the reservoir behind the Three Gorges Dam, since that is on the opposite side of the world from Greenland. But that would only explain part of it, since the reservoir holds about 40km^3 and Greenland is losing about 240km^3 per year.
I was actually going to post something incredibly close to this. The causal link just isn't there, as far as I can tell. 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.
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
Is this a conservation of angular momentum thing? Because I feel like my high school physics teacher would try to explain this by spinning someone around in a chair with a melting ice cube on their head.
When you're at the North Pole, which way is East?
Just like the age of something can be measured by multiple decay products, layer depth, and many other measures of archeological assessment, and when they are in agreement, you know your results are robust, this is another way to measure the loss of ice which, if it agrees with GRACE, land measurements and predictions from models, will indicate that the model results are robust.
It's even in the FS:
"The results suggest that tracking polar shifts can serve as a check on current estimates of ice loss."
There was this guy called Adolph that shifted the Poles too
I wonder how this affects high-accuracy geodetic GPS measurements. The GPS coordinate system is defined by the Earth's axis.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
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.
i first read about this a decade ago and it has been happening for hundreds of years. scientists are studying ships' logs from the 1700's and earlier and this process started 300 years ago.
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.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
There are plenty of things we can do. There's very little we *want* to do.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
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.
I was going to call stupidity on this, but then I realized they meant the axial poles. The magnetic poles have been shifting (they travel a lot, and sometimes reverse; there's been dramatic movement in the recent decade), and this can alter magma flows and screw with global weather patterns. Axial poles shift due to mass movement, which may occur from magnetic poles moving hot metal around, but also other reasons as cited.
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The fact that bad ideas dominate the set of proposed solutions does not make the problem invalid.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
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
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
No, you'll get the real 'oops' when you will realise that you didn't check that 'Post Anonymously' box.... twice.
You can't handle the truth.
And if it is, too goddamn bad, because I'm not giving up my Buick for some sissy electric car that doesn't even have exhaust pipes.
Plus, Jesus is gonna come back way before we have to worry about global warming. And when he gets back, he's not going to want to see a bunch of Priuses. He's going to want to see 400hp American Iron.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Actually companies make money by passing such issues to the general public. Externalities is what they call it.
Well if the earth Poles have moved, the government of Poland is going to be out of a job soon.
No left turn unstoned.
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.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Santa has to move :(
I know you're being ironic, but I'd like to point out he's also completely wrong.
The effect of continental drift, ice melting, ocean temps, etc is a quite long studied subject (see ref below which mentions George Darwin already looked at polar wobbling). I admit not everything about the wobbling is fully understood, but at least since 2002 [1] we are quite confident that the Greenland ice melting is significant enough to cause an effect on polar motion.
The fact that random people here often think they did a better job at the science in a 20 sec post (especially if that science is related to a politically sensitive topic) is something interesting I have been observing on /. for the last 2-3 years, and is quite a disappointing trend imho.
[1] http://www.pnas.org/content/99/10/6550.full
You're confusing the drift and inversion in the planet's magnetic pole with the drift in the planet's rotational pole. This article is about the latter.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
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.
"Do unto others as you would have them do nought to sixty."
Actually by that metric the electric vehicles are still ahead.
Yeah, but in America we don't USE metric.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Not at all. It's a method that's proven itself repeatedly in studies on other subjects, such as the inner structure of the Earth and the measurement of earthquakes. If you'd rather believe that geophysicists studying the earth's mantle who've never written a climate science paper in their lives are also part of The Conspiracy you're welcome to, but you're rapidly going to find yourself as the only one who isn't In On It.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Is there anything that isn't caused by global warming? It's getting silly at this point.
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