Climate change effect: Earth's axis has meandered 10 metres in last 120 years, say studies

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Two NASA-funded studies have shown that melting ice, dwindling groundwater, and rising seas, a result of climate change, has also led to the Earth's axis to meander 10 metres in the last 120 years.

In the first study, published in Nature Geoscience, researchers analysed polar motion across 12 decades.

The scientists from ETH Zurich in Switzerland attributed 90 per cent of recurring fluctuations in polar motions between 1900 and 2018 to changes in groundwater, ice sheets, glaciers, and sea levels.

The remainder mostly resulted from Earth's interior dynamics, like the wobble from the tilt of the inner core concerning the bulk of the planet, they said.

Changes caused due to Earth's rising temperatures "are strong drivers of the changes we're seeing in the planet's rotation," said Surendra Adhikari, a co-author of both papers and a geophysicist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

The second study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showed that since 2000, days have been lengthening by 1.33 milliseconds.

This change is attributed to the accelerated melting of glaciers and ice sheets due to human-caused greenhouse emissions.

The lengthening of days could decelerate by 2100 if emissions are significantly reduced.

However, if emissions continue to rise, the effect could reach 2.62 milliseconds per century, surpassing the influence of the Moon's tidal pull, which has been increasing Earth's day length by 2.4 milliseconds per century, the scientists said.

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