A new study has revealed that humans have significantly impacted the Earth’s rotation by extracting large amounts of water from the planet between 1993 and 2010.
Published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, the research shows that due to the alarming amount of water extracted from the Earth, its tilt shifted by approximately 80 centimeters towards the east during this period.
Previous studies had indicated that the movement of water was causing the Earth to rotate in a slightly different manner. The latest research estimates that humans extracted 2,150 gigatons of water from the Earth’s surface between 1993 and 2010, equivalent to a modest 6 millimeter rise in sea levels during this period.
Although the impact of water movement on the Earth’s rotation was first discovered in 2016, the role of underground water in these rotational changes remains unclear.
The new study modeled the observed changes related to the shifting of Earth’s rotational poles and water movement. The results indicated that the regions from which water was extracted were linked to the extent of the shift in polar positions.
Researchers noted that the majority of water extraction during this period occurred from the western United States and northwestern India, both of which are located in the mid-latitude region.
