North Pole shifting due to climate change, study says
An aerial view of icebergs as they float out of the Jacobshavn Fjord into the Jacobshavn bay, August 29, 2007 near Ilulissat, Greenland.
Things feeling a little off these days? It could be because the world is actually a little crooked.
Climate change may be shifting the Earth's geographic poles, a new study shows.
Scientists have known the poles move a bit with the seasons but not at this speed and not to this extent.
University of Texas at Austin researchers found that the melting of the Greenland ice sheet has helped push the North Pole a little eastward.
In fact, between 1982 and 2005, the North Pole has moved towards Labrador at just over two inches per year.
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Then after 2005, the pole began moving due east towards Greenland at a much faster rate.
This was largely due to ice loss and sea level rises say scientists.
They used the data to model how melting ice caps affect mass distribution on Earth.
The evidence was collected using data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE).
The finding was published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
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