In just a century, humans have changed the climate to the point of affecting the way the Earth rotates. This comes after scientists recently discovered that melting ice, loss of groundwater, and rising sea levels are changing the Earth's rotational axis, thus also causing days to become longer. The findings are the result of an analysis of data collected over 120 years, which shows that the Earth's axis has shifted by around 10 metres since 1900.
For your information, NASA says the mass transfer from melting glaciers and ice sheets, as well as the decline of groundwater, is causing our planet to spin slightly wobbly, causing a phenomenon known as " polar motion ". Since 2000, Earth's day has been getting longer by about 1.33 milliseconds every 100 years, faster than in previous periods.
If greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase, Earth's day may lengthen to 2.62 milliseconds per century by 2100. It is greater than the effect of the moon's gravitational pull, which was previously thought to be the main cause of changes in day length.
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