CHANGES ON THE EARTH

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27873, 23 January 1956, Page 11

CHANGES ON THE EARTH

Polar Movement And Melting Ice (Rec. 9 p.m.) LONDON. January 21. The North and South Poles are wobbling about, Greenland ice is melting and even the length of a day is changing. British astronomers are worried about it all. Yesterday, they met to try to explain just what was going wrong with the earth. Mr Thomas Gold, of the Royal Observatory, said that the length of a day was changed by the sinking of mountains or even of whole continents into the substratum of the earth. Movements of few millimetres would account for the alterations, which amounted to perhaps one thousandth of a second a year. Of the slight wobble of the North and South Poles, he said the movement of surface material could move the poles through considerable distances. The only thing that conferred some degree of stability on the earth was the fact that it was not quite spherical —there was a bulge at the equator. Fortunately the bulge possessed a natural tendency to correct any wanderings by either pole. According to Mr Gold, if the continent of South America were suddenly raised (about 100 feet) the earth would start toppling over at the rate of one degree every 1000 years. Greenland ice was melting steadily, at a rate sufficient to account for the movement of the North Pole through a tenth of a second in the direction of Newfoundland, he said.