Political Junky
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Oh my, more evidence of climate change.
Climate Change Is Moving the North Pole
PUBLISHED APRIL 8, 2016
Finding the North Pole means traveling north, right? Yes, but with a slight caveat: Earth's northern pole is drifting rapidly eastward, and it looks like climate change is to blame. The discovery may have major implications for studies of ice loss and drought, potentially improving our ability to predict such changes in the future.
Earth turns around an axis like a giant spinning top. The places where that invisible axis intersects with the planet's surface are the north and south rotational poles. Due to Earth's wobble on its axis, these spots drift in roughly decade-long cycles. (All this motion is a completely separate mechanism from the behavior of the planet's magnetic poles, which also reverse periodically over the course of millions of years.)
Scientists pinpoint the geographic north and south poles by taking the long-term averages of those rotational positions.
Explorers and scientists have been reliably measuring the precise positions of the rotational poles since 1899, first by measuring the relative positions of the stars and then by using satellite telemetry. Over the past century or so, the poles have tended to wander by just a few centimeters a year.
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Climate Change Is Moving the North Pole
PUBLISHED APRIL 8, 2016
Finding the North Pole means traveling north, right? Yes, but with a slight caveat: Earth's northern pole is drifting rapidly eastward, and it looks like climate change is to blame. The discovery may have major implications for studies of ice loss and drought, potentially improving our ability to predict such changes in the future.
Earth turns around an axis like a giant spinning top. The places where that invisible axis intersects with the planet's surface are the north and south rotational poles. Due to Earth's wobble on its axis, these spots drift in roughly decade-long cycles. (All this motion is a completely separate mechanism from the behavior of the planet's magnetic poles, which also reverse periodically over the course of millions of years.)
Scientists pinpoint the geographic north and south poles by taking the long-term averages of those rotational positions.
Explorers and scientists have been reliably measuring the precise positions of the rotational poles since 1899, first by measuring the relative positions of the stars and then by using satellite telemetry. Over the past century or so, the poles have tended to wander by just a few centimeters a year.
<more>
