Hey, everything is your fault. You pesky humans. But you knew that already, eh?
Cleverly, there's no mention in this article of those two massive earthquakes near Indonesia back in the aughts, both of which slightly knocked the planet off it's axis. No way they were involved, right?
Earth is wobbling, and it’s probably our fault
Right ... no way were these two earthquakes are involved ... in fact, the article is a complete and total lie ...
FAKE NEWS ...
This is easily demonstrated ... head outside tonight and find the North Star ... it's due north ... and it's been due north for a 1,000 years and will be for another 1,000 years ... rock solid, not a wobble to be detected ... this is the direction Earth's axis is pointed, if there was a wobble, then the North Star would be wobbling ... obviously it's not ...
The mistake here is that our rate of rotation is changing ... what the eggheads call "angular velocity" ... consider the spinning figure skater; as she draws her arms in, she spins faster; as she extends them, she slows down ... and notice her axis of rotation does
not change ... her (and the Earth's) "angular momentum" do not change ...
Both earthquakes and melting ice caps bring more of the Earth's mass towards her center, thus speeding up the spin just a tiny bit ... however, humans also build dams and impound water at altitude, moving mass away from her center, thus slowing down the spin a bit ...
About the only effect of this is to give a few astronomers paying jobs ... other than teaching high school ... (
c.f.
en.wikipedia.org
)
