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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?
There was this guy called Adolph that shifted the Poles too
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.
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
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.