North Pole shift 'due to climate change'

The location of the North Pole is beginning to change due to climate change. New research has suggested that climate change is causing the North Pole to drift, which is triggering the axis of the earth to alter. 

Researchers from the University of Texas have found that as climate change causes ice sheets and glaciers to melt - due to the warming of the earth caused by trapped greenhouse gases in the atmosphere - the location of the North Pole alters. 

Although the location on the North Pole has been found to be altering each year since observations first began in 1899, climate change is adding its own factor to the movement. Scientists have observed that the North Pole has moved around ten centimetres south every year since 1899. This is due to changes in the mass distribution of the Earth as a result of the Earth's crust rebounding following the last ice age.

However, the research found that the shift of the North Pole altered quite dramatically in 2005. Rather than moving along longitude 70 degrees west every year, the pole began to shift eastwards. Since 2005 the pole has moved around 1.2 metres, reports New Scientist. 

The researchers used information garnered by NASA's GRACE satellite, which tracks any changes in the gravity field of the Earth over a number of years. With this data the researchers measured the impact that the melting of the Antarctic and Greenland glaciers and ice sheets, and the subsequent increase in sea levels, on the redistribution of mass across the surface of the Earth. 

It was found that the biggest contributing factor to the North Pole's shift in location was the melting of Greenland's ice sheets. According to Jianli Chen, senior research scientists at the University of Texas, the change in sea level due to the melting of ice in these regions could explain around 90 per cent of the pole's shift eastward. He continued to say that climate change was the main factor in the melting of the ice.