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Australian Broadcasting Corp reports:
From 1982 to 2005, we measured the location of the North Pole as drifting slowly southwards towards Labrador around six to seven centimetres each year.
But in 2005, the North Pole suddenly, and without any warning, did two new things. First, it chucked a leftie and started heading east, parallel to the Equator. Second, the North Pole more than tripled its speed to about 24-or-so centimetres per year.
Plain and simple, rapid melting of ice on land has driven Earth's North Pole to the east. This solid ice used to be on land, but is now liquid water spread everywhere across the planet.
We've been measuring this change to the land ice with satellites beginning in the early 1990s, right up to our current CryoSat-2, which was launched in 2010. Over the decades, the satellites have taken many tens of millions of height measurements. The most recent analysis tells us that between 2011 and 2014, Greenland and Antarctica between them were losing about 500 billion tonnes of land ice per year — about three-quarters of it from Greenland. This was an increase of two-to-three times over the previous loss rate as measured between 2003 and 2009.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday July 19 2015, @03:34PM
Isn't the position of the north pole by definition exactly on the north-most point of earth? I mean I understand it wandering relative to the geographic structures (that is, the earth changing its rotation axis), but the pole "drifting slowly southwards" doesn't make sense to me. Even less does "heading east, parallel to the equator" make any sense to me: First, from the north pole, all directions are to the south, and second, if the pole moves, so does the equator, so the pole can never move relative to the equator.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by CirclesInSand on Sunday July 19 2015, @03:57PM
There are 3 things that can be referred to as the north pole. First is geographic north pole: it is the intersection of the axis of rotation of the earth with the surface of the earth. Second is magnetic north pole : it is where magnets are facing. Third is just a vague reference to northern ice. From the summary, I'm not sure at all what they are referring to.
(Score: 3, Funny) by BK on Sunday July 19 2015, @04:06PM
You forgot the red and white post that Santa Claus lives next to.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 3, Touché) by CirclesInSand on Sunday July 19 2015, @05:03PM
No, I assumed you would mention it.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday July 19 2015, @04:12PM
Well, you certainly cannot measure the speed of a vague reference to northern ice, so the third is obviously out. The mass distribution on the earth's surface probably does not affect the position of the magnetic north pole, and certainly not in a direct way, so that would exclude the second option. But the geographic north pole is exactly what defines the principal directions, and therefore my comment applies.
But well, maybe they used Santa's home as definition of the north pole.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Informative) by soylentsandor on Sunday July 19 2015, @06:28PM
You forget number four: the coordinates 90°00'00.0"N 0°00'00.0"W in the grid we laid across the planet for navigational purposes. Today I learned that is called the World Geodetic System [wikipedia.org].
Relative to that, the rotational axis can obviously move to any quarter of the compass.
(Score: 2) by CirclesInSand on Monday July 20 2015, @08:15AM
Ah that should have been mentioned too. However, I think we can assume that global warming isn't going to change that. Hopefully.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday July 20 2015, @07:22PM
Interesting. However, as far as I can see, the Wikipedia article does not mention how the north pole is determined for those coordinates. Which means it doesn't answer the very question if the rotational axis can move relative to those coordinates.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 19 2015, @04:57PM
Yea the summary at least is conflating North pole and Magnetic North pole and in doing so suggests from the title that the earths axial tilt has been changed. All in all a very craptacular title and summary.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anne Nonymous on Sunday July 19 2015, @05:18PM
Great. Now all my maps are crooked.