Melting Polar Ice Caps: What are Its Effects on the Earth's Rotation? Here’s What Expert Says

A geologist revealed if polar ice caps keep melting, days on Earth could become longer than 24 hours. This is because the planet will in the long run spin more slowly in the universe resulting from increased sea levels at its axis.

A Daily Star report said that in an interview with Inverse, a pop science website, Earth science expert Mathieu Morlighem explained how this planet might appear in 2121 after about a hundred years of "climate change has taken its toll."

The bad news is, approximately 40 percent of the population of the world will be directly impacted by rising in sea level as they stay in coastal areas.

Morlighem said that entire nations are going to vanish. Pacific islands, he added, would be gone. He continued asking who would take care of these people and that they need a place to live in, not to mention the culture they are practicing.

Polar Ice Caps Melting

As the oceans are creeping inland, saltwater will penetrate and pollute some freshwater reserves and result in further problems for humans scrambling away from the shore.

The expert also referred to the Gulf Stream, which SciJinks describes as a gigantic circulation system that is moving Caribbean water to the Arctic, where it's cooling and moving back south.

Professor Morlighem explained oceanic circulation may slow down if there is too much freshwater entering the Arctic, leading to the Gulf Stream's shutdown and, he elaborated, that's quite not good news for Europe.

This nation, he continued explaining, will be as cold as Montreal. Temperatures there would fall and there would be some sort of mini Ice Age.

Therefore, the days may turn out to be a lot colder, and possibly, they could even get colder said the professor.

Polar Ice Caps Melting Effect

Another interesting effect is that, if polar ice caps are melted, that will impact the rotation of Earth and may, in fact, change how long the day is.

The ice sheets, he explained further, are near the axis of the Earth's rotation. Specifically, they are around the poles.

The ice melts, and the place the water will go is around this planet further away from the rotation's axis. Consequently, the Earth will spin at a slower rate. It is difficult to measure, Morlighem said, although perhaps 10 to 20 seconds longer for one day.

Describing the freezing temperatures, longer days, and the disappearance of entire nations underwater, the expert admits everything sounds "a bit apocalyptic."

The Good News

The expert may have described the polar ice caps melting effect a bit apocalyptic but he said that the good news is that it will take thousands and thousands of years for the entire polar ice caps to completely melt. He added the whole world is not going to end in 2121.

Also in his Inverse interview, Professor Morlighem explained, it's thought that if Greenland were to melt at present, there would be a global rise in sea level by roughly 7.4 meters, and Antarctica is another 58 meters.

More so, he added, it will not be equally distributed all over the world due to gravitational attraction. There will be sea-level fall around Antarctica and Greenland, although the rise is everywhere else.

A related report is shown on Riddle's YouTube video below:

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