What when you come to know that the moon is in spite of giving some major advantages also affecting the earth in a way that the planet can face some disastrous problems? A recent study by two different universities suggests that the earth’s rotation is slowing down over time. This is something that is causing some major, stronger, and more frequent earthquakes.
The Researchers and Study
Researchers from Roger Bilham of the University of Colorado in Boulder and Rebecca Bendick of the University of Montana in Missoula collected the data of earthquakes having a magnitude of more than 7.0. They just looked for earthquakes since 1900. The findings were shocking though the reason behind them is not clear. But the expert’s belief is that the changes in the core of the earth are eventually affecting the surface.
Shattering Findings
They found that a slower planet faces earthquake in a shorter interval and they are stronger than the fastest planet. The researchers noticed that since the 20th century came into the existing earth have experienced more number of earthquakes having a magnitude of seven or more. All this happened when the rotation starts to fall.
Prof Bilham elaborated it as “In these periods, there were between 25 to 30 intense earthquakes a year.” He added, “The rest of the time the average figure was around 15 major earthquakes a year.”
He further said that “The correlation between Earth’s rotation and earthquake activity is strong and suggests there is going to be an increase in numbers of intense earthquakes.”
But What Is Causing The Slower Rotation?
Why our planet’s rotation is slowing down is another big question. The answer is to keep the tides ahead of the moon; the earth needs energy. Kinetic energy fulfills this need, but as a fact, it is limited and will have termination point at some time. Notably, keeping the tides ahead of the lunar satellite is necessary as it keeps the ecosystem stable. Also, it plays a major role in the splattering ocean from continent to continent.
Colder Nights and Hotter Days
In addition to the earthquake study, researchers found that once the tides eloped from the earth, the weather pattern would be quite shattering.
The night side would be colder, and the dayside would be hotter in comparison to the current era were we have pros of tides. Though this is something that we will not see till billions of years past. But still, it’s something that should be notified before to find a solution.
The Planetary Science Institute (PSI) wrote down the findings as “In a couple of billion years or so tides on Earth raised by the Moon will have slowed our planet down enough such that both the Moon and Earth keep the same sides facing each other. In other words, Earth’s rotation rate will be equal to the Moon’s orbital period (about 27 days now).”
“Once Earth gets into this configuration, you can imagine the change in weather patterns that would result. The night side would cool off significantly during the long period without solar heating. Conversely, the dayside would heat up more than it presently does.”
“This difference in heating and cooling may result in strong atmospheric winds blowing from the hot daytime side to the cold nighttime side. In addition, geographically speaking there will no longer be high tides ‘coming in’ and ‘going out’ because the position of the tides will be fixed with respect to the continents.”