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An illustration of the drift from the axis of the Earth. According to a new NASA study, Earth has drifted about 10 meters off its axis in the last century. Scientists have blamed global warming, causing a redistribution of weight on the surface of the planet, as a primary source. ( Jet propulsion laboratory | The NASA )
Humans are rocking the Earth on its axis, a recent in-depth NASA study found.
Based on the measurements of the 20th century, scientists were able to discover that the axis of rotation of the planet had drifted about 4 inches or 10 centimeters a year. During the last century, the Earth has drifted more than 10 meters or 11 meters.
The study was published in the journal Scientific letters of the Earth and planets.
Earth moves in a strange way
The irregular distribution of weight on the surface is one of the reasons why the planet falters when it rotates on its axis. The Earth is not a perfect sphere; it's actually an oblate spheroid. When it turns on its axis of rotation, it drifts and oscillates. The process is called "polar movement".
However, NASA researchers believe that three factors are mainly responsible for the wobbling: glacial bounce, mantle convection and ice melt.
"The traditional explanation is that a process, the glacial rebound, is responsible for this movement of the Earth's axis of rotation," said Surendra Adhikari of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "But recently, many researchers have speculated that other processes could have potentially significant effects on it as well."
The redistribution of mass on Earth in the last century, especially the melting of ice caps in the ocean in Greenland, has affected the natural rotation of the planet. As ice melts in different parts of the world due to rising temperatures caused by climate change, Greenland is considered the main suspect because of its location.
During the 20th century, 7,500 gigatonnes of Greenland ice melted into the ocean.
The other two causes, however, occur naturally. During the last ice age, about 26 thousand years ago, vast expanses of earth were covered with a heavy glacier, which caused the depression of the land in the depression and around the perimeter of the glacier.
However, when the glaciers melted, the earth slowly rebounded or returned to its original position. This is what scientists call the glacial bounce and, as it is a very slow process, the earth is still trying to bounce back from the last ice age.
Meanwhile, mantle convection is the movement of tectonic plates beneath the surface of the Earth. This is caused by heat from the planet's core.
What can be done
While the human race can do nothing to control the ice bounce and convection of the mantle, the redistribution of the mass caused by the melting of ice in the ocean can still be corrected. If Greenland continues to lose ice due to climate change, the polar movement will also likely accelerate.
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