I thought I knew all the dreadful effects of climate change, but this new discovery has truly surprised me: “Climate change is causing the North Pole’s location to drift, owing to subtle changes in Earth’s rotation that result from the melting of glaciers and ice sheets.” The entire Earth is tilting because this change.
One example:
The influx of fresh water from shrinking ice sheets also causes the planet to pitch over. Landerer and colleagues estimate that the melting of Greenland’s ice is already causing Earth’s axis to tilt at an annual rate of about 2.6 centimetres – and that rate may increase significantly in the coming years.
During the this century, ocean warming will make the north pole’s spin axis to move towards Alaska and Hawaii about 1.5 centimers per year. The newly redistributed mass will also make our planet to spin faster.
