Humans have pumped so much groundwater, we’ve shifted Earth’s axis

Over the course of about two decades, humans pumped enough water out of the ground that we shifted Earth’s poles by almost a metre. This is equivalent to the polar drift caused by melting Greenland ice over the same period.

“Most people would go about their lives and wouldn’t be aware of [Earth’s] wobbles or the drift,” saysat the University of Texas at Austin. He and his colleagues modelled how changes in the distribution of water around the planet have affected the drifting of the poles.wobbles like a top. The poles also drift due to changes in the distribution of mass around the planet, such as the movement of water due to the seasons.

Wilson and his colleagues modelled the drift using estimates of the amount of groundwater pumped between 1993 and 2010, which totalled around 2100 gigatonnes, and theSign up to our Fix the Planet newsletterThe polar drift attributed to these changes from groundwater pumping amounted to about 80 centimetres. Wilson says this is especially due to large aquifers located at mid-latitudes, which have the greatest effect on polar drift.

This doesn’t itself have particular consequences in terms of changes in the length of day or of the seasons, says Wilson. Although he says that knowing the precise location of the axis is essential for any GPS technology to work.at Virginia Tech. “The precise number doesn’t matter really,” he says. “What matters is that the volume is so gigantic that it can impact the polar drift of the Earth.”driven by climate change, as well more crops growing in dry places, says Shirzaei.

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