Did the odd distribution of ice-age ice affect Earth's rotation?

Question

I saw a map showing the location of the ice in the last ice age. The ice covered basicall 75% of N America and most of North-west Europe. But that was it.

Most of Siberia was free of ice, presumably because it did not suffer from the N Atlantic reversal of the ocean currents.

But if all that ice, up to 4 km deep, was offset so much of the pole, surely it must have had an effect on the way the Earth rotates.

I know the Earth is many orders more massive than that ice, but I note that bowlers in cricket can alter the swing of the ball simply by digging a gouge in it with their fingernail. It is called ball-tampering, and is illegal. But it goes on and does the trick of altering the spin of the ball.

So, surely all that ice must have had an effect.

Anyone heard of any evidence of that?

Answer 1

Hi. Sure it did. The rotation was effected due to mass relocation and different distance to the Earth's center. But the shift paled next to the effect of the Moon's gravity, tidal forces, etc. The Earth's axis wobbles many degrees over a cycle of several tens of thousand years. This is a more dramatic change that even the ancients realized. Today we call it the procession of the equinoxes. Check it out.

Answer 2

love the question, been pondering and the likleyhood is that it may have tilted the orbit of the earth very slighly, due to the compression forces of the ice changing the shape of the earth (4km of ice pushes down a lot, Scotland for example is rebounding at 3mm a year after its ice cap has melted)

hope this helps

Answer 3

its actually the distance from the sun on a particular angle of rotation that affect the distribution of ice...from what i read the earth changes poles every 200 000 yrs(not sure) that is north becomes south and vice versa....magnet anomilies(look it up)

Answer 4

Describe the relationship between mass and weight.?