The Earth’s poles have already shifted by four meters, and this process will continue in the future. Scientists believe the reasons for the displacement are melting glaciers and excessive consumption of groundwater.
The planet’s North and South poles do not have a clearly fixed position; they are influenced by how the Earth’s mass is distributed across the planet. If previously ocean currents were responsible for this, now the shift of the poles is facilitated by the melting of ice. “The accelerated decline in land water supplies due to melting glacial ice is the main driving force behind the rapid polar drift since the 1990s,” said study author Shanshan Deng.
The movement of the poles is affected by pumping groundwater. When countries use groundwater to provide water for their populations or for agriculture, they fail to consider the consequences of the process.
Over the past 50 years, people have pumped 18 trillion tons of water out of the earth, and as a result, the used water ends up in the sea, affecting the redistribution of the Earth’s mass, reports Ecosphere.
The angle of displacement of the earth’s axis is so far so small that it does not affect our daily life in any way, but accelerating climate change and the increasing consumption of groundwater by humanity in the future may cause further displacement of masses, and the processes of changing the inclination of the earth’s axis will become more significant, with unpredictable consequences.