Impact of climate change on earth's rotation might surpass moon's influence, new study reveals

Climate change has impacted our planet in both expected and surprising ways. According to a recent study reported by USA Today, climate change is lengthening our days by accelerating changes in the Earth's rotation. The melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are a major factor. As the ice melts and flows into oceans near the equator, it alters the Earth's shape, consequently slowing its rotation.

The Earth's rotation is becoming more influenced by climate change than by the moon, according to research from ETH Zurich. Explaining the change in rotation Benedikt Soja, Professor of Space Geodesy at the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering at ETH Zurich said, "It’s like when a figure skater does a pirouette, first holding her arms close to her body and then stretching them out." He further explained, "A shift in mass is taking place, and this is affecting the Earth’s rotation." The rotation slows down because the mass moves away from the axis of rotation causing physical inertia.

This phenomenon is governed by the law of angular momentum in physics, which applies to Earth's rotation. As the rotation slows, days become longer. Although not immediately noticeable, climate change has added milliseconds to our 86,400-second day. Other factors, like tidal friction caused by the moon, also slow Earth's rotation. However, if pollution and climate change continue unchecked, their influence on Earth's rotation could surpass that of the moon.

“We humans have a greater impact on our planet than we realize and this naturally places great responsibility on us for the future of our planet," Soja pointed out. Climate change isn't just melting the ice and slowing down the rotation but also changing the axis of rotation. The change is happening at the point where the axis of rotation meets the surface of the earth. The point would likely move hundreds of meters over the years. The reason behind this is the changing shape of the planet along with the changes taking place deep within the earth's surface. As the metal becomes more viscous due to high pressure displacements take place over time. 

“For the first time, we present a complete explanation for the causes of long-period polar motion. In other words, we now know why and how the Earth’s axis of rotation moves relative to the Earth’s crust," Mostafa Kiani Shahvandi, one of Soja’s doctoral students and lead author of the study wrote in a statement. “Climate change is causing the Earth’s axis of rotation to move, and it appears that the feedback from the conservation of angular momentum is also changing the dynamics of the Earth’s core,” Soja pointed out.

“Ongoing climate change could therefore even be affecting processes deep inside the Earth and have a greater reach than previously assumed," Kiani Shahvandi noted. “In barely 200 years, we will have altered the Earth’s climate system so much that we are witnessing its impact on the very way Earth spins,” Surendra Adhikari, a geophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and a report author told CNN.