Dec 15, 2015 12:06 PM EST By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

A team of scientists looked back in time to project a major effect rising sea levels can have on the Earth: quickening the planet's rotation.

Published in the journal Science Advances, the new study used astronomical observations from the Babylonians, Chinese, Arabs, and Greeks to help make future projections of the Earth's axis and rotation.

"In order to fully understand the sea-level change that has occurred in the past century, we need to understand the dynamics of the flow in Earth's core," study co-author Mathieu Dumberry, a professor in physics at the University of Alberta, said in a press release.

According to The Washington Post, an oceanographer named Walter Munk published a paper in 2002 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on the relation of sea level rise to the Earth's rotation. The paper has since become known as "Munk's Enigma."

For their study, the researchers set out to solve the enigma by explaining why melting ice brought on by climate change causes the Earth to spin faster.

"What we believe in regard to melting of glaciers in the 20th century is completely consistent with changes in Earth's rotation [as] measured by satellites and astronomical methods," study lead author Jerry X. Mitrovica, a geophysicist at Harvard University, told Live Science. "This consistency was elusive for a few years, but now the enigma is resolved.

"Human-induced climate change is of such pressing importance to society that the responsibility on scientists to get things right is enormous," Mitrovica said. "By resolving Munk's enigma, we further strengthen the already-strong argument that we are impacting climate."

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