Scientists recently discovered something surprising and worrying. It turns out that in the last 20 years, people have taken so much water out of the ground that it’s actually changing the way Earth leans or tilts. The Earth tilted about 80 centimeters (31.5 inches) from 1993 to 2010. This happened because humans are using a lot of water from underground and putting it in different places. It’s a big deal because it affects how our planet stands or leans.
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How much groundwater has been extracted?
Scientists used computer programs to figure out that a really, really big amount of water, about 2,150 gigatonnes, was taken out from the Earth between 1993 and 2010. This is like filling up the whole Lake Victoria in Africa, and it would be as heavy as 5.5 million Empire State Buildings!
The water that was taken out didn’t just disappear. It went into the oceans and made the sea level rise by six millimeters. But, the scientists say it’s hard to be completely sure if this is exactly right.
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Earth’s axis and water
In 2016, scientists discovered that water can affect how the Earth spins. But, until recently, we didn’t know how much underground water contributes to these changes in how the Earth tilts.
For this research, scientists looked at how the Earth’s spinning pole and water movement changed. First, they only considered ice sheets and glaciers. Then, they added different ways underground water moves around.
They found that their model matched the real changes in the pole’s drift only when they included 2150 gigatons of underground water movement. Without this, their model was off by about 78.5 centimeters (31 inches) or 4.3 centimeters (1.7 inches) of drift per year.
The study also noticed that where the underground water was located mattered. Most of it moved in western North America and northwestern India. Since these places are in the middle of the Earth, moving water from there had a big impact on how the Earth spins.
The lead scientist, Ki-Weon Seo from Seoul National University in South Korea, said that if countries try to slow down the use of underground water, especially in sensitive areas, it could change how the Earth spins. But, this would only work if these conservation efforts last for a long time.
He also mentioned that out of all the things affecting the Earth’s spin, moving underground water has the biggest impact.
Scientists ‘Surprised and concerned’ about the findings
Seo is happy because they figured out why the Earth’s poles are moving strangely. But, as someone who lives on Earth and is a dad, he’s worried because taking water out of the ground is making the sea level rise.
The person leading the study said they can use old data about how the poles moved in the late 1800s to understand how water on land changed in the last 100 years. They want to know if the climate getting warmer caused changes in how water moves on Earth. Another scientist, Surendra Adhikari, who didn’t work on the study, said it shows that taking water from the ground is a big deal for how the poles move.