Seeing that more and more dams are being built since they are environmentally friendly (more or less), I was wondering if the weight mass of the water from these dams might have an impact on the rotation and angle of the earth? And if so, how would it affect the rotation and climate longterm?
In: Earth Science
To start with there are things that have a way bigger impact on the Earths rotation then humans building dams. Glaciers are melting and entire tectonic plates are moving in all directions. Some of these are big and sudden enough that we can actually measure them. However we have yet to be able to measure the impact any dam have on the Earths rotation, at least not been able to distinguish it from the background noise from all the other things changing the rotation of the Earth.
That being said storing vast quantities of water higher in the mountains does theoretically slow down the rotation of the Earth by a tiny bit. It can also have a small impact on the tilt but this is similarly very little and impossible to measure.
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