Research has shown that decades of groundwater pumping has had significant impacts on the planet's motion. It’s amazing just how impactful our behavior can be. Even small acts, like using the taps in our homes, can contribute to significant changes across the planet. This may sound trivial, but over the last 20 years alone, the pumping of groundwater – mostly for drinking – has caused Earth’s rotation to tilt eastwards by nearly 80 centimeters (31.5 inches) and sea levels to rise. It seems our water use is an important factor to consider when we think about climate change.

Between 1993 and 2010, humans pumped 2,150 gigatons of groundwater (that’s about 9.09 quadrillion cups of water).

In 2016, scientists showed that the distribution of water was able to change the rotation of Earth. But at the time, the phenomenon lacked detail about how groundwater use might be involved in that.

This is where the study by Ki-Weon Seo and colleagues came into play. The team modeled observed changes in the drift of Earth’s rotational pole and the movement of water. They ran multiple scenarios and the only one that matched the 4.3 centimeters (1.7 inches) of drift per year that we have seen was the one that included the 2,150 gigatons of groundwater redistribution calculated previously.