A new study claims that the Earth’s tilt changed by almost 80 centimeters between 1993 and 2010, and humanity is responsible for this. The new study is published in the journal Geophysical Research Lettersand according to the researchers behind it, humans pumped 2,150 gigatons of groundwater from the planet, causing the planet to change its tilt.

While the information from the study is certainly alarming and raises more questions about how humanity is contributing to climate change problems, it’s also very difficult to verify the researchers’ assessment. One way to confirm these findings is with what we call the Earth’s rotating pole.

The planet rotates around this point and this point moves as a process called polar motion continues. In general, scientists claim that the Earth’s spin pole can move depending on the Earth’s crust. Also, the distribution of water on our planet can play a role in determining the earth’s tilt by affecting how the mass of the earth’s crust is distributed.

A simple way to represent what’s going on is to add a very small weight to the warp. This weight then changes how the top rotates. In this case, Earth is on top and the weight we’re dealing with is the water table. So the Earth rotates a little differently depending on how we move its water.

According to scientists, this rotation pole actually changes a lot. However, movement and changes in the distribution of groundwater appear to have the greatest effect on the so-called shift of the spin pole. As such, some researchers are concerned about what these movements might mean for the Earth’s tilt.

In addition, these changes in the distribution of groundwater on Earth are likely to be explained by the global sea level rise we have seen in recent years. The study also shows that efforts to slow the rate of groundwater depletion could reverse changes in the Earth’s tilt, though it will take several decades.