5 ms·

The rotational North Pole is moving east at 14 cm per year

77 points by empressplay 11y ago

eternauta3k 11y ago
I'm surprised the Earth is rigid enough that you can define the rotational axis to that level of precision.
- adevine 11y ago
  I still think it's pretty amazing that scientists are able to detect something like a 14cm annual change on something as big as the Earth, and even more, to come up with a plausible explanation for this tiny change.
  - intrasight 11y ago
    Indeed. And we can assume that the precision will only increase. So we'll be watching the global warming catastrophe unfold in high-res.
LukeB_UK 11y ago
Link to the actual paper: http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/4/e1501693 http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/4/e1501693
blue1 11y ago
Meanwhile, the magnetic pole is moving 4000 times faster.
ythl 11y ago
I thought any direction relative to the north pole is south? What does "east" even mean in relation to the north pole?
- thrownaway2424 11y ago
  Even worse, what could "east along the Greenwich meridian" possibly mean?
  - mynewtb 11y ago
    'gizmodo'
jrapdx3 11y ago
The laws of unintended consequences were never more evident than implicit in global climate change, a result of human activity. We always intended to make the world better, at least that's what we constantly said we were trying to do. We should be warned based on history. All actions and decisions have numerous and unpredictable outcomes, more than we ever realize at the time. It's a curious thing that we seem not to remember this lesson, endlessly repeating the process on each iteration. Rush headlong into an idea, and then spend decades or centuries repairing the damage. Despite having evolution's best brain, and the ability to do otherwise, we humans have been on the whole poor long-term planners, we have failed to see the big picture. Or more to the point we don't heed those among us who urge us to consider the implications of our behavior, preferring the expedient until we hit a wall. The article's conclusion is not a surprise, all the clues are converging toward the revelation that human cleverness will be our undoing, unless we learn to push our problem-solving abilities to their full capability, setting aside our usual short view for the possibility of continued existence. So what do we surmise are the odds world-wide leadership of that caliber will arise? One guess is as good as any other.
- mikeash 11y ago
  The activities that resulted in climate change also resulted in a vast improvement in the lives of a huge number of people. If I were somehow thrown back in time and given control over the process, I'd do it all over again, albeit with a greater emphasis on efficiency, and on alternatives once they became practical.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - jrapdx3 11y ago
    Of course, I too enjoy the benefits of the technologies fueled by everything that causes global climate change, and wouldn't want to do without. But the evidence for deleterious side-effects of progress have been around for a very long time, and time and again overlooked until it had reached an interim crisis point. I don't have a solution for balancing technological improvement with due caution for untoward outcomes. That lies in the social/political domain, but it provokes the question of whether we humans have the courage or will to face up to the task or what it takes to get us there.
glitcher 11y ago
Can anybody explain how moving any direction from the North Pole is anything but south? Or am I confusing magnetic north with rotational north?
- jacobolus 11y ago
  Unfortunately our language doesn’t have great words for concisely and precisely describing three-dimensional rotations, precession, etc. in plain words. (We can be precise by using diagrams or mathematical notation, or writing an extended paragraph of explanation.) Of course if we define the rotational axis to be the “north pole”, then it doesn’t make sense for it to be moving east, or even south: by definition whatever direction it points is always north. What they seem to mean is, if we predict the pole’s future path over the surface of the planet, previously it was moving toward Canada, and now it’s moving toward England. Relative to the N–S–E–W coordinate frame we use today, if we keep that coordinate frame static, the modified path of the pole is to the “east” of its original path.
  - ahazred8ta 11y ago
    TL;DR - For a long while, the pole was slowly moving toward Canada. Then for about a decade, it slowly moved toward Europe. Now since about 2012, it is slowly moving toward Greenland. Based on gravity measurements, it looks like changes in global groundwater levels and icecaps are responsible for the changes in direction.
- twelvechairs 11y ago
  I believe are saying is that its moving (more) towards the eastern hemisphere (actually, only slightly east of London) than it was previously (when it was heading towards canada)
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
  There's a difference between the magnetic pole and the rotational pole.
- vacri 11y ago
  There's also geographic north, which is where the map lines (and hence 'eastward') come from. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_firsts_in_the_Geographic_North_Pole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_firsts_in_the_Geograph...
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
ChuckMcM 11y ago
So here is a crazy whacko theory about how an ice age gets kicked off. The theory goes that the further "south" (or out of position) the pole moves, the more it changes the solar insolation ratio of land/water to more land and less water. Since land has a higher albedo that water, its reduces the amount of energy from the sun that makes it into the atmosphere and that causes the temperature to drop, putting down more snow, higher albedo, more snow, until full on glaciation. Then the shifted mass of the water pulls the pole back to where we consider "normal", things start melting, we exit the ice age the water moves around pulling the pole southward again, and like one of those giant "drinking bird" toys you could get in the science museum the planet goes in and out of ice ages.
basicplus2 11y ago
yes but they need to include all the effects of all the nutations of the earth from the shortest a 19 year cycle caused by the moon to the 22,000 year cycle

77 points by empressplay 11y ago

eternauta3k 11y ago

I'm surprised the Earth is rigid enough that you can define the rotational axis to that level of precision.

adevine 11y ago
I still think it's pretty amazing that scientists are able to detect something like a 14cm annual change on something as big as the Earth, and even more, to come up with a plausible explanation for this tiny change.
- intrasight 11y ago
  Indeed. And we can assume that the precision will only increase. So we'll be watching the global warming catastrophe unfold in high-res.

LukeB_UK 11y ago

Link to the actual paper: http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/4/e1501693 http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/4/e1501693

blue1 11y ago

Meanwhile, the magnetic pole is moving 4000 times faster.

ythl 11y ago

I thought any direction relative to the north pole is south? What does "east" even mean in relation to the north pole?

thrownaway2424 11y ago
Even worse, what could "east along the Greenwich meridian" possibly mean?
- mynewtb 11y ago
  'gizmodo'

jrapdx3 11y ago

The laws of unintended consequences were never more evident than implicit in global climate change, a result of human activity. We always intended to make the world better, at least that's what we constantly said we were trying to do. We should be warned based on history. All actions and decisions have numerous and unpredictable outcomes, more than we ever realize at the time. It's a curious thing that we seem not to remember this lesson, endlessly repeating the process on each iteration. Rush headlong into an idea, and then spend decades or centuries repairing the damage. Despite having evolution's best brain, and the ability to do otherwise, we humans have been on the whole poor long-term planners, we have failed to see the big picture. Or more to the point we don't heed those among us who urge us to consider the implications of our behavior, preferring the expedient until we hit a wall. The article's conclusion is not a surprise, all the clues are converging toward the revelation that human cleverness will be our undoing, unless we learn to push our problem-solving abilities to their full capability, setting aside our usual short view for the possibility of continued existence. So what do we surmise are the odds world-wide leadership of that caliber will arise? One guess is as good as any other.

mikeash 11y ago
The activities that resulted in climate change also resulted in a vast improvement in the lives of a huge number of people. If I were somehow thrown back in time and given control over the process, I'd do it all over again, albeit with a greater emphasis on efficiency, and on alternatives once they became practical.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- jrapdx3 11y ago
  Of course, I too enjoy the benefits of the technologies fueled by everything that causes global climate change, and wouldn't want to do without. But the evidence for deleterious side-effects of progress have been around for a very long time, and time and again overlooked until it had reached an interim crisis point. I don't have a solution for balancing technological improvement with due caution for untoward outcomes. That lies in the social/political domain, but it provokes the question of whether we humans have the courage or will to face up to the task or what it takes to get us there.

glitcher 11y ago

Can anybody explain how moving any direction from the North Pole is anything but south? Or am I confusing magnetic north with rotational north?

jacobolus 11y ago
Unfortunately our language doesn’t have great words for concisely and precisely describing three-dimensional rotations, precession, etc. in plain words. (We can be precise by using diagrams or mathematical notation, or writing an extended paragraph of explanation.) Of course if we define the rotational axis to be the “north pole”, then it doesn’t make sense for it to be moving east, or even south: by definition whatever direction it points is always north. What they seem to mean is, if we predict the pole’s future path over the surface of the planet, previously it was moving toward Canada, and now it’s moving toward England. Relative to the N–S–E–W coordinate frame we use today, if we keep that coordinate frame static, the modified path of the pole is to the “east” of its original path.
- ahazred8ta 11y ago
  TL;DR - For a long while, the pole was slowly moving toward Canada. Then for about a decade, it slowly moved toward Europe. Now since about 2012, it is slowly moving toward Greenland. Based on gravity measurements, it looks like changes in global groundwater levels and icecaps are responsible for the changes in direction.
twelvechairs 11y ago
I believe are saying is that its moving (more) towards the eastern hemisphere (actually, only slightly east of London) than it was previously (when it was heading towards canada)
GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
There's a difference between the magnetic pole and the rotational pole.
vacri 11y ago
There's also geographic north, which is where the map lines (and hence 'eastward') come from. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_firsts_in_the_Geographic_North_Pole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_firsts_in_the_Geograph...

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

ChuckMcM 11y ago

So here is a crazy whacko theory about how an ice age gets kicked off. The theory goes that the further "south" (or out of position) the pole moves, the more it changes the solar insolation ratio of land/water to more land and less water. Since land has a higher albedo that water, its reduces the amount of energy from the sun that makes it into the atmosphere and that causes the temperature to drop, putting down more snow, higher albedo, more snow, until full on glaciation. Then the shifted mass of the water pulls the pole back to where we consider "normal", things start melting, we exit the ice age the water moves around pulling the pole southward again, and like one of those giant "drinking bird" toys you could get in the science museum the planet goes in and out of ice ages.

basicplus2 11y ago

yes but they need to include all the effects of all the nutations of the earth from the shortest a 19 year cycle caused by the moon to the 22,000 year cycle