{"id":10943,"date":"2025-04-11T14:18:13","date_gmt":"2025-04-11T14:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/10943\/"},"modified":"2025-04-11T14:18:13","modified_gmt":"2025-04-11T14:18:13","slug":"the-north-pole-could-move-by-nearly-90-feet-by-2100-causing-havoc-for-satellite-navigation-scientists-warn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/10943\/","title":{"rendered":"The North Pole could MOVE by nearly 90 feet by 2100 – causing havoc for satellite navigation, scientists warn"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is the reference point for all the world’s navigation systems and one of the most famous locations on Earth.<\/p>\n

But scientists say that the geographical North Pole is on the move and could shift nearly 90 feet (27 metres) by 2100.<\/p>\n

As the polar ice sheets melt faster in the warming climate, Earth’s mass is redistributed, slightly shifting our planet’s axis of rotation.<\/a><\/p>\n

Although these changes might be small on the planetary scale, scientists warn they could cause havoc for satellite navigation.<\/p>\n

As the Earth turns on its axis, changes in the oceans, atmosphere, and deep within the molten mantle cause the planet to wobble like a spinning top.<\/p>\n

While most of the planet’s wobbles are regular and predictable, scientists from ETH Zurich have found that human-caused changes will soon outweigh the natural shifts.<\/p>\n

Since satellites and deep space telescopes work out their position by referring to the Earth’s axis of rotation, any change in the North Pole could cause serious issues.<\/p>\n

Lead author Dr Mostafa Kiani Shahvandi, now at the University of Vienna, told MailOnline this could cause inaccuracies ‘from a few metres to hundreds of metres’.<\/p>\n

\"Earth's <\/p>\n

Earth’s North Pole is on the move and could shift by as much as 90 feet (27 metres) by 2100, according to scientists\u00a0<\/p>\n

Like anything spinning on its axis, big changes in the Earth’s distribution of mass cause it to shift on its axis.<\/p>\n

Most of the time this is a normal and predictable process caused by factors such as regular cycles of ocean currents.<\/p>\n

However, as the planet’s ice sheets and glaciers melt, this is causing a more rapid redistribution of weight than scientists have observed in the past, which is causing the pole to shift.<\/p>\n

Dr Shahvandi and his co-author measured the movement of the poles between 1908 and 2000 and compared this with projections of ice melt to see how far they might move in the future.<\/p>\n

In the worst-case scenario, in which greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced, the dramatic melting of the ice sheets will have moved the poles 89 feet between 1900 and 2100.<\/p>\n

In a more optimistic scenario in which greenhouse gas emissions are reduced, the North Pole will still move as much as 39 feet (12 metres).<\/p>\n

For now, human-caused effects aren’t moving the poles as much as natural causes.<\/p>\n

The biggest source of polar shift currently comes from the Earth rebounding from the last ice age.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"As <\/p>\n

As the ice caps melt in the warming climate, Earth’s weight is redistributed around the planet. Like a spinning top, this shift alters the axis about which the Earth spins and moves the geographical North Pole\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"In <\/p>\n

In the worst-case scenario (red) climate change could trigger the pole to move\u00a089 feet between 1900 and 2100. In a more optimistic scenario (green) in which greenhouse gas emissions are reduced, the North Pole will still move as much as 39 feet (12 metres)<\/p>\n

During the ice age, the Earth’s crust sunk down under the weight of glaciers and has risen up since they melted, redistributing the planet\u2019s weight.<\/p>\n

Even though the last ice age ended over 10,000 years ago, the rebound effects can still be seen in the natural shift of the North Pole.<\/p>\n

However, in the near future the scientists say that human-caused climate change will overtake the ice age rebound as the biggest contributor.<\/p>\n

Dr Shahvandi says: ‘Currently, the natural processes dominate polar motion, but if climate change continues and ice sheets melt more and more, then in the last decades of the 21st century the human-induced climate change will certainly dominate.’<\/p>\n

Recently, scientists have warned that the world’s sea ice \u2013 the frozen ocean water at the North and South Poles \u2013 has plunged to a record low.<\/a><\/p>\n

Last month, Arctic sea ice reached its lowest monthly extent for March in the 47-year satellite record.<\/a><\/p>\n

Arctic sea ice covered an area six per cent smaller than average, marking the fourth month in a row when sea ice extents have seen record-breaking lows.<\/p>\n

Likewise, Antarctic sea ice hit its fourth lowest monthly extent for March, standing 24 per cent lower than average.<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The biggest contributors to the shift were the Antarctic ice sheet and the Greenland Ice Sheet (pictured) which is melting at an accelerating rate\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"This <\/p>\n

This graph shows how much the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet could shift the pole on the X (top) and Y (bottom) axes by 2100. The red line shows the worst-case scenario in which emissions do not reduce and the blue line shows the more optimistic scenario<\/p>\n

\"This <\/p>\n

This could cause serious problems for satellite navigation and for space-based telescopes like the James Webb Space Telescope (pictured) which use the Earth’s axis as a reference point for navigation. This could cause errors on the scale of kilometres\u00a0<\/p>\n

The researchers discovered that the biggest sources of polar shift are the melting of the Greenland Ice sheet and the Antarctic Ice sheet.<\/p>\n

If this change continues, it is likely to cause issues for the sensitive navigation systems of satellites and space telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope.<\/p>\n

In their paper, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, the researchers write: ‘Since prediction of polar motion is crucial for applications such as spacecraft navigation and orientation of deep-space telescopes, the reduced predictability of polar motion under climate change might impact the operational accuracy of such applications.’<\/p>\n

That would be bad for navigation systems here on Earth but even more perilous for spacecraft since it will become harder to work out their exact location.<\/p>\n

Dr Shahvandi says this could create errors of ‘kilometres’ for spacecraft probing distant planets.<\/p>\n

SEA LEVELS COULD RISE BY UP TO 4 FEET BY THE YEAR 2300<\/a><\/p>\n

Global sea levels could rise as much as 1.2 metres (4 feet) by 2300 even if we meet the 2015 Paris climate goals, scientists have warned.<\/p>\n

The long-term change will be driven by a thaw of ice from Greenland to Antarctica that is set to re-draw global coastlines.<\/p>\n

Sea level rise threatens cities from Shanghai to London, to low-lying swathes of Florida or Bangladesh, and to entire nations such as the Maldives.<\/p>\n

It is vital that we curb emissions as soon as possible to avoid an even greater rise, a German-led team of researchers said in a new report.<\/p>\n

By 2300, the report projected that sea levels would gain by 0.7-1.2 metres, even if almost 200 nations fully meet goals under the 2015 Paris Agreement.<\/p>\n

Targets set by the accords include cutting greenhouse gas emissions to net zero in the second half of this century.<\/p>\n

Ocean levels will rise inexorably because heat-trapping industrial gases already emitted will linger in the atmosphere, melting more ice, it said.<\/p>\n

In addition, water naturally expands as it warms above four degrees Celsius (39.2\u00b0F).<\/p>\n

Every five years of delay beyond 2020 in peaking global emissions would mean an extra 8 inches (20 centimetres) of sea level rise by 2300.<\/p>\n

‘Sea level is often communicated as a really slow process that you can’t do much about … but the next 30 years really matter,’ said lead author Dr Matthias Mengel, of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, in Potsdam, Germany.<\/p>\n

None of the nearly 200 governments to sign the Paris Accords are on track to meet its pledges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is the reference point for all the world’s navigation systems and one of the most famous locations…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[92,875,70,261,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-10943","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-dailymail","9":"tag-earth","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-sciencetech","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114319766623337379","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}