All because you, dear reader, drove a fossil fueled vehicle to a Christmas gathering and left your Christmas lights on when not at home. This comes from the New Scientist, which, apparently, the “New” part means too much mescaline
Earth’s poles are shifting because of climate change
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 finding suggests that monitoring the position of the pole could become a new tool for tracking global warming.
Let’s be clear: these folks mean climate changes caused mostly or solely by Mankind. Nature? Pfft. Nature only affects past changes, or when it is really convenient for Climatologists.
Computer simulations had suggested that the melting of ice sheets and the consequent rise in sea level could affect the distribution of mass on the Earth’s surface. This would in turn cause the Earth’s axis to shift, an effect that has been confirmed by measurements of the positions of the poles.
Now, Jianli Chen of the University of Texas at Austin and colleagues have shown that melting due to our greenhouse-gas emissions is making its own contribution to the shift.
Chen and colleagues supposedly used NASA’s GRACE satellite to measure wobble and gravity fields, and determined
“Ice melting and sea level change can explain 90 per cent of the [eastward shift],” says Chen. “The driving force for the sudden change is climate change.”
Obviously, in Warmist World, there can be no other explanation. But, then, in their world, “climate change” is responsible for everything. Their brains just can’t conceive of the notion that most of the changes in climate/weather could have natural causes, just like has happened over the last 4.5 billion years. This is not science, these people are part of a cult. It’s no wonder Warmists want all divergent discussion banned from the media, chat rooms, etc.
Hard to tell what they’re talking about here. There are two different poles- the true geographical North Pole and the magnetic North Pole. Compasses obviously use the magnetic North Pole, which has been constantly changing position due to shifts in the magnetic field throughout earth’s history.
From the North Pole, all compass directions are South. There is no Easterly shift/drift possible, the sun rises (when it does) to the south.
The mass involved here is the entire world, versus some minor ice melting. those have estimates with (i would guess) of significant variations plus or minus. His calculations would result in guesstimates — subtle or not.
That loud POUNDING you’re hearing is my head against the wall.
Are the idiots with degrees publishing this stuff that bloody stupid?
Jl has already mentioned that the magnetic North Pole has a natural variation, but I have to wonder if the bozos cited in the article have heard of “precession of the equinoxes” either?
Yes, the commenters at the Pirates Cesspool understand climate better than climate scientists, who, according to the Pirate are taking hallucinogens.
from the article: “This drift is due to the changes in the distribution of Earth’s mass as the crust slowly rebounds after the end of the last ice age. But Chen’s team found something surprising. In 2005, this southward drift changed abruptly. The pole began moving eastwards and continues to do so, a shift that has amounted to about 1.2 metres since 2005.”
Do you think the scientists don’t know what they are doing? Did they make an error in their measurements? If the axial pole is shifting, what is causing it? Magic? Jesus? Mother Nature?