<ul data-eligibleForWebStory="false"><li>Human dam-building over the past two centuries has caused a shift in Earth's poles by about a meter and resulted in a 21-millimeter drop in global sea levels, according to a study in Geophysical Research Letters.</li><li>The process, known as true polar wander, occurs when mass is redistributed around the planet's surface, causing the outermost solid layer to wobble and move relative to the magma below it.</li><li>Researchers found that the construction of 6,862 dams from 1835 to 2011 led to two phases of pole shifts, with the North Pole moving 20.5 centimeters toward the 103rd meridian east and then shifting 57 centimeters toward the 117th meridian west.</li><li>The study highlights the importance of considering water impoundment from dams when calculating future sea level rise and its impact on global sea levels.</li></ul>

Human dam-building has caused a small (but astonishing) pole shift

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