By pumping water out of the ground and moving it elsewhere, humans have actually shifted such a large mass of water that the Earth tilted nearly 80 centimeters east between 1993 and 2010 alone, changing the planet’s rotational pole, according to a new study published in the American Geophysical Union’s Geophysical Research Letters.

Sea level rise is one of the most significant phenomena associated with the warming climate. Contemporary sea level rise has been monitored extensively by multiple observational techniques.

The research was entitled “Drift of the Earth’s pole confirms groundwater depletion as a significant contributor to global sea level rise 1993-2010.”