“It is just another interesting effect of climate change”. The movement towards Canada was at around 7 to 8 centimeters per year, Adhikari said, and the movement towards the U.K.is now about 16 to 18 centimeters per year.
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“One of the important things underlying this work is that we have a satellite system that’s been operating for 15 years that can detect any change of mass in the oceans, ice sheets and Earth’s water in general”, says Ivins, referring to NASA’s GRACE mission. This is called the conservation of angular momentum, and is often illustrated with the analogy of a twirling figure skater whose rate of spin changes when he or she extends or retracts arms or a leg.
They all combine to pull polar motion towards the east, Adhikari added. Between 80 and 35 million years ago tectonic processes moved Greenland over an area of abnormally hot mantle material that still today is responsible for the volcanic activity of Iceland, researchers said. That is somehow the law of nature.
Although most scientists agree that the shift is not a danger, many believe that it should still be noted.
When ships first began circling the globe, studying the stars took on new meaning, helping sailors navigate the seas.
“That could tell us something about past climate – whether the intensity of drought or wetness has amplified over time, and in which locations”, said Adhikari. “And this pattern is contributing substantially to this shift in the general direction of the polar motion”.
The loss is affecting the way earth wobbles, affirmed Ivins.
The researchers used an innovative combination of computer models and data sets from seismology, gravity measurements, ice core drilling campaigns, radar sounding, as well as both airborne, satellite and ground-based measurements to reveal the secrets of Greenland’s past hidden beneath a three-km thick ice sheet.
246-c-17-(Seth Borenstein (BOR’-ehn-styn), AP correspondent)-“motion, that wobbles”-AP correspondent Seth Borenstein reports a NASA study finds that global warming is shifting the way the Earth wobbles on its polar axis”. A new study from NASA found it might also be changing the way the Earth moves on its axis.
Earth’s spin axis drifts slowly around the poles; the farthest away it has wobbled since observations began is 37 feet (12 meters).
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Study author Erik Ivins says it is possible to use the same technique of polar motion assessment in future researches that aim to identify if Greenland had experienced any mass changes from 1899 to present that is similar to the current situation. Losses of water from Eurasia, for example, correspond to eastward swing in the general direction of the spin axis (top), and Eurasian gains push the spin axis westward (bottom). And if you agree that human greenhouse gas emissions are behind the melting of Greenland and Antarctica, then, well, there’s another conclusion: Humans ourselves have become a geophysical force.
