Is "Erte" causing imbalances...?

Question

Is it possible that the earth has a self-righting mechanism that is creating physical catostrophies like psunamies. earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, etc., in order tweak the north-south axis just a little bit to keep it in the right position?

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Answer 1

Not likely.

First of all, you assume there is a "right position." There is not. Several planets rotate on an axis that is almost parallel to the plane of their orbit around the Sun. It makes no difference to the planet. Likewise, what you consider a disaster is not a significant event on the scale of the planet. If the north-south axis were moving irregularly, we would be able to measure it and this has not been observed.

However, there are known natural cyclical perturbations in Earth's orbit that do affect climate, including hurricanes and tornadoes. To the extent that climate cycles affect glaciation, they do play a role in plate movements. As continents are loaded with ice by glaciation, they tend to sink into the mantle below them. This often creates changes in sea level, and also causes other parts of the continental land mass to rise, much as a teeter-totter works. As the ice melts again, the parts of the continent under the ice began to rise up, causing other parts to fall. Right now the effect of continental glaciers melting about 10,000 years ago is causing the coast of Louisiana to sink. This is known as isostatic rebound. It seems logical to conclude that this change in load and stress also causes faults to move, which in turn can cause a tsunami. That said, the relationship between climate, isostatic rebound and tsunamis is very indirect, and I know of no tsunamis that were caused by plate movement related to isostatic rebound.

These climate cycles are known as Milankovitch cycles and they are quite well documented in the rock record and by astronomical measurements. Here is a web page that explains Milankovitch Cycles:
http://www.homepage.montana.edu/~geol445/hyperglac/time1/milankov.htm

Answer 2

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