GNSS study: The Earth is becoming rounder
A new study using satellite measurements indicates that the Earth is becoming slightly less flattened over time. Researchers found that polar uplift and equatorial subsidence are accelerating, likely due to melting ice sheets and shifting mass.
Why it matters
Understanding these geometric changes is crucial for scientists to accurately track climate change and its long-term impact on the planet's physical behavior.
The study, by C. Kotsakis of the Department of Geodesy and Surveying at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece, looked at how the shape of our planet is slowly changing over time.
The Earth isn’t a perfect sphere, but rather an oblate spheroid — slightly flattened at the poles and bulging at the equator.
But that shape isn’t fixed; it changes due to natural processes such as melting ice, shifting land, and changes in the Earth’s surface and interior.
“To better understand these changes, we used satellite-based measurements of how the Earth’s surface moves up or down in different places,” the author writes in the study’s paper, which has been published in the journal JGR Solid Earth .
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