Scientists have discovered groundwater pumps tilted the planet 80 centimetres east between 1993 and 2010 alone. Previous climate models suggest between that time period we pumped 2,150 gigatons of groundwater - the equivalent weight of 5.5 million Empire State Buildings, or six millimetres of sea level rise.
The planet turns around a point, known as its rotational pole, and moving masses of water around the planet has shifted its balance. Experts at Seoul National University compared the phenomenon to adding a tiny bit of weight to a spinning top.
Groundwater may be pumped to irrigate crops, mines or used at home. Changes in water distribution have been known to effect the globe’s tilt since 2016, but at the time scientists only studied the shift in the context of ice sheets and glaciers' journeys.
