# What if the Earth was rotated? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 24, 2010, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-earth-was-rotated/554914 "2010-09-24T18:33:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-earth-was-rotated/554914/1 "2010-09-24T18:33:12Z")
A bizarre thought that occurred to me as I was looking at my globe the other day. Suppose super aliens came along and used their space bat technology to rotate the Earth ninety degrees. Let’s say that the new south pole is at zero degrees and the equator (off the shore of Ghana) and the new north pole is 180 degrees and the equator (in the vicinity of Samoa). And then they start it spinning along its new axis. Assume they’re able to do this without breaking the planet. How long would it take before the old ice caps melt in their new tropical locations and new ice caps form in the new polar regions? Would it be relatively quick, like in a year or two? Or would the accumulation of ice last for decades or more? Would it be a relatively simultaneous event, with the new ice caps forming as the old ones melted and the overall sea level remaining constant? Or would the new caps form first or the old ice caps melt first, causing the sea level to go up or down? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-earth-was-rotated/554914/2 "2010-09-24T18:58:48Z")
The formation of ice caps is not just due to the amount of insolation the poles get, but to a complex dynamic that depends on the conformation of land near the poles in combination with ocean currents. Even with the continents in their current positions, the northern ice caps have repeatedly melted and reformed over the past million years because of cyclic changes in the Earth’s orbit. The current cycle of northern glaciations may have been triggered about three million years ago by the closure of the Isthmus of Panama, which entirely rearranged oceanic circulation. Even on the Equator, my guess is that the ice caps, especially Antarctica, would take at least centuries and more likely millenia to melt. The presence of large masses of ice in the tropics would undoubtedly have very large and unpredictable impacts on the global climate. Assuming the new alignment of continents and ocean currents will permit the accumulation of ice caps, this will likely take tens of thousands of years to reach similar volumes as at present. (See [here](http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/astro_glacial.html) for the time line of past glaciations.) The ice cap of Antarctica, however, has been accumulating in some places for tens of millions of years. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-earth-was-rotated/554914/3 "2010-09-24T19:10:34Z")
The is no qualified answer to this question other than that it would take tens if not hundreds of millennia before the climate would return to anything like a stable equilibrium. Of course, if your hypothetical aliens have such indistinguishable-from-magic technology to change the Earth’s rotational momentum without shredding the planet into bite-sized chuncks, controlling the climate should be a non-issue. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-earth-was-rotated/554914/4 "2010-09-24T19:15:13Z")
It would almost certainly wreak havoc on the already unstable real estate market. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-earth-was-rotated/554914/5 "2010-09-24T19:19:26Z")
This is just a SWAG, but I would predict that with the poles located in open ocean, as the OP postulates, no new ice caps will be able to form. The modern ice caps are due in large part to the presence of land at the South Pole, and a relatively shallow, nearly enclosed ocean around the North Pole. Both of these configurations prevent or limit the transfer of heat from equatorial to polar regions via oceanic circulation. With a greatly enhanced capacity for heat exchange through ocean currents, I would predict the new polar regions would eventually become much warmer than the present ones are. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-earth-was-rotated/554914/6 "2010-09-24T19:21:51Z")
> [@Darth\_Panda](#): > > It would almost certainly wreak havoc on the already unstable real estate market. Not to mention the tropical fruit market. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-earth-was-rotated/554914/7 "2010-09-24T19:28:27Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > insolation A word I haven’t run across since the fourth grade, but which my brain has never let go of. [For the curious.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insolation) ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-earth-was-rotated/554914/8 "2010-09-24T19:32:45Z")
> [@KneadToKnow](#): > > > [@Colibri](#): > > > > insolation > > A word I haven’t run across since the fourth grade, but which my brain has never let go of. > > [For the curious.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insolation) Damn, we were still covering this in 9th… eta: oh, and hello to a fellow Charlottean - Big Ten Bar Crawl tomorrow 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-earth-was-rotated/554914/9 "2010-09-24T19:41:47Z")
Good to know you, **Darth Panda**! I’ll see your Big Ten Bar Crawl and raise you a [Charlotte Geeks Trivia Night](http://www.meetup.com/The-Charlotte-Geeks/calendar/14439433/?a=mu_mvzzo3gnq1). ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-earth-was-rotated/554914/10 "2010-09-24T19:44:44Z")
> [@KneadToKnow](#): > > Good to know you, **Darth Panda**! > > I’ll see your Big Ten Bar Crawl and raise you a [Charlotte Geeks Trivia Night](http://www.meetup.com/The-Charlotte-Geeks/calendar/14439433/?a=mu_mvzzo3gnq1). Blocked at work ☹ although this isn’t: [http://www.bigtenpubcrawl.com/Charlotte/](http://www.bigtenpubcrawl.com/Charlotte/) go figure ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-earth-was-rotated/554914/11 "2010-09-24T20:15:20Z")
I’m thinking centuries is much too long. At a latitude of 45 degrees in the US, we go from 0 degrees F to 100 and back every year, with an angle change of only 47 degrees. On Antarctica, there’s about 1.4E7 km^2, an average of 1.6 km deep, or 2.24E16 m^3 of ice = 2.24E+19 kg. It takes 334 kJ/kg to melt ice, and throw in another 60 kJ/kg or so to warm it from around 0 to 32, and you need about 9E21 kJ. The Sun gives 1000 Watts/m^2 or 8.64E6 Joules per day to a surface perpendicular to the Sun’s rays, so Antarctica will get about 1.2E21 joules per day. So (check my numbers!) Antarctica will receive enough energy to melt the icecap in about 7500 days, or about 20 years. Yeah, snow is white, but when it starts melting, dirt collects on the surface, makng it absorb light better. Also, the calculations don’t count energy received elsewhere on Earth and transported to Antarctica by winds. My guess is Antarctica will melt within a decade. The North pole ice is already unstable, and I’d guess it will be gone in weeks. At the new pole near Ghana, I’d expect ice will start forming on land from snow within a year, but the other pole is in the open ocean, so there may be enough currents to keep it ice free indefinitely. ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-earth-was-rotated/554914/12 "2010-09-24T20:21:59Z")
ETA: oops, forgot to account for night. Divide the energy indicent on Antarctica by 3 or 4. I’m still thinking on the order of a decade is abut right, though. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-earth-was-rotated/554914/13 "2010-09-24T20:38:25Z")
> [@ZenBeam](#): > > ETA: oops, forgot to account for night. Divide the energy indicent on Antarctica by 3 or 4. I’m still thinking on the order of a decade is abut right, though. Well, the absorption issue is even more important. I’d divide by 10 or so for light reflected off - even dirty snow is pretty reflective. You could be 600-800 years at that point. There’s another thing to consider. Antarctica has a high elevation in many areas. In fact, Wikipedia says it has the highest average elevation of any continent. There are mountain ranges that average 5-10,000 feet and peak at around 15,000. This is enough to maintain at least some glaciers permanently on the equator (such as the ones currently in Kenya). You’d no longer have an ice cap, obviously, but the ability to maintain a permanent glacier would surely slow down the erosion of the full ice cap. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-earth-was-rotated/554914/14 "2010-09-24T20:39:58Z")
You’ve also neglected to account for cloud cover. I suspect that that a large mass of ice in the tropics would cause condensation of warm moist air moving over it from the sea and be covered by clouds much of the time, limiting the effect of solar radiation. > [@ZenBeam](#): > > At the new pole near Ghana, I’d expect ice will start forming on land from snow within a year, but the other pole is in the open ocean, so there may be enough currents to keep it ice free indefinitely. The actual pole off Africa as specified by the OP is hundreds of miles offshore, with free circulation of water from the new equatorial regions. Snow may fall around the Gulf of Guinea in the winter, but it’s unlikely that there would be enough net accumulation in the winter to result in an ice cap. (After all, most of the land above the Arctic Circle at present is ice-free during the summer.) ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-earth-was-rotated/554914/15 "2010-09-24T21:14:17Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Even on the Equator, my guess is that the ice caps, especially Antarctica, would take at least centuries and more likely millenia to melt. Would it be possible to estimate this based on what percentage the Antarctic ice cap shrinks in volume each summer? In other words, if X% melts in two months, then the whole thing would melt in Y years given ongoing insolation. Also, if we get more insolation, will I need better insulation? ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-earth-was-rotated/554914/16 "2010-09-24T21:39:25Z")
> **[Uranus | Axial tilt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus#Axial_tilt)** > > The Uranian axis of rotation is approximately parallel to the plane of the Solar System, with an axial tilt that can be described either as 82.23° or as 97.77°, depending on which pole is considered north.\[j\] The former follows the International Astronomical Union definition that the north pole is the pole which lies on Earth's North's side of the invariable plane of the Solar System. Uranus has retrograde rotation when defined this way. Alternatively, the convention in which a body's north and s... > [@](#): > > Uranus has an [axial tilt](http://boards.straightdope.com/wiki/Axial_tilt) of 97.77 degrees, so its axis of rotation is approximately parallel with the plane of the Solar System. This gives it seasonal changes completely unlike those of the other major planets. Other planets can be visualized to rotate like tilted spinning tops on the plane of the Solar System, while Uranus rotates more like a tilted rolling ball. Near the time of Uranian [solstices](http://boards.straightdope.com/wiki/Solstice), one pole faces the [Sun](http://boards.straightdope.com/wiki/Sun) continuously while the other pole faces away. Only a narrow strip around the equator experiences a rapid day-night cycle, but with the Sun very low over the horizon as in the Earth’s polar regions. At the other side of Uranus’s orbit the orientation of the poles towards the Sun is reversed. Each pole gets around 42 years of continuous sunlight, followed by 42 years of darkness.[[49]](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/#cite_note-48) Near the time of the [equinoxes](http://boards.straightdope.com/wiki/Equinox), the Sun faces the equator of Uranus giving a period of day-night cycles similar to those seen on most of the other planets. Uranus reached its most recent equinox on 7 December 2007.[[50]](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/#cite_note-49)[[51]](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/#cite_note-weather-50) ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-earth-was-rotated/554914/17 "2010-09-24T21:52:39Z")
> [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](#): > > Would it be possible to estimate this based on what percentage the Antarctic ice cap shrinks in volume each summer? In other words, if X% melts in two months, then the whole thing would melt in Y years given ongoing insolation. That’s not going to tell you that much about the what will happen if the position of the ice cap changed. First off (as **ZenBeam** has indicated, there will be much greater input of solar radiation due to receiving the direct rays of the sun if Antarctica were in an equatorial position. But the actual rate of melting will be influenced by how air circulates over the ice cap and by cloud formation. Meltwater also could accelerate the flow of glaciers to the sea, ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-earth-was-rotated/554914/18 "2010-09-24T22:00:24Z")
Regarding **Fear Itself’s** post, my reading of the OP is that the alignment of Earth’s axis of rotation relative to the sun would be the same as it is now, just that the orientation of the continents relative to the axis of rotation would be different. If the Earth had an axis of rotation with an inclination like Uranus’s, that would be another new ball game. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-earth-was-rotated/554914/19 "2010-09-24T22:05:53Z")
Yeah, I may have misread the OP. I thought the axial angle changed. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-earth-was-rotated/554914/20 "2010-09-24T22:20:47Z")
Is the axis of rotation pointing at the sun or is it tangential? In the former case, the sunward side of the Earth is going to get very hot indeed. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-earth-was-rotated/554914.md?page=2)