We pumped out so much groundwater that the shaft shifted because of it.
new Stady Between 1993 and 2010, the Earth’s tilt changed by about 80 cm, he writes Space.com. This phenomenon may be due to the withdrawal of groundwater.
In the mentioned period, our species removed 2,150 gigatonnes of water from the natural reservoirs in the planet’s crust. This amount would raise the level of the global oceans by 6 millimeters.
Experts have modeled the changes affecting the Earth’s rotation pole. This point is not permanent, the axis of rotation can shift up to a meter each year, due to climate-related processes, such as the melting of glaciers. The data matched the observations only when the researchers added the pumped water to the formula.
“Our study shows that among climate-related causes, groundwater redistribution actually has the greatest impact on pole shift,” he said. Ki-Veon Sat, a geophysicist at Seoul National University and a member of the team. The researchers’ next goal is to see if the pole shift affects climate.
The data also revealed that water removed from areas between the Tropic of Cancer and the Arctic Circle, and the Tropic of Capricorn and the South Pole, has the greatest effect on the planet’s tilt.