Tuesday November 26, 2024
Earth.com —
Picture this: every time you use water from your tap, you’re inadvertently influencing our Earth’s rotational tilt and climate change. Strange, and not a good thing, but true.
Our planet is a dynamic entity, constantly shifting and adapting. Believe it or not, something as seemingly insignificant as our water usage can cause Earth’s physical orientation to deviate.
Over less than two decades, our groundwater pumping has tilted the Earth by 31.5 inches. To put this into perspective, this water redistribution equates to approximately 0.24 inches of sea-level rise.
“Our study shows that among climate-related causes, the redistribution of groundwater actually has the largest impact on the drift of the rotational pole,” said Ki-Weon Seo, a geophysicist at Seoul National University.