Climate models simulate winds, pressure, ocean circulation, ice and other changing parts of the Earth system. Researchers can use those simulated fields to estimate how mass and momentum shifts affect Earth’s rotation—but many climate models do not let the changing rotation rate feed back into the simulation itself. The distinction matters: a model can help calculate a rotation response without dynamically changing the planet’s spin inside the model.
How changes in mass and motion affect Earth’s rotation
Two related physical effects connect climate to Earth’s rotation. One is the redistribution of mass; the other is the exchange of angular momentum between the atmosphere and solid Earth. They can influence different rotation measurements, so polar motion and length of day (LOD) should not be treated as interchangeable.
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Mass redistribution can move the spin axis
Moving ice, groundwater, ocean water or other mass changes Earth’s distribution of mass, and therefore its inertia tensor. This can shift the rotation axis relative to the crust, a motion called polar motion. NASA’s polar-motion visualization depicts contributions from surface mass changes, such as ice melt and sea-level change, as well as internal processes including glacial rebound and mantle convection. The visualization exaggerates the displayed signals to make them easier to see.
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The atmosphere carries angular momentum in its winds and in its mass distribution. NASA’s Earth-rotation service distinguishes the motion component of atmospheric angular momentum (AAM), associated with winds relative to Earth, from the mass component, associated with atmospheric mass distribution. To a close approximation, when angular momentum is conserved, a change in atmospheric angular momentum is balanced by an opposite change in the solid Earth’s angular momentum. That exchange can alter spin rate, commonly expressed as a change in LOD.
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In practical terms, climate output supplies changing winds and pressure fields; a rotation calculation then applies angular-momentum conservation to estimate the associated response. The effect is real but small, and its estimated size depends on the reservoirs, time scales and external torques included.
What climate models simulate—and what they may leave fixed
Climate models represent interacting components and enforce physical conservation laws. NASA’s climate-model explainer describes simulations of atmosphere, ocean and land processes that follow conservation of mass, momentum and energy. NASA’s GEOS-5 description gives a coupled-system example in which atmosphere, ocean, land and sea ice exchange momentum, heat and freshwater.
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That does not mean every model dynamically updates Earth’s rotation rate. The treatment depends on the model and research question. A HadGEM3 study, for example, used simulated atmospheric angular-momentum fluctuations to examine LOD variability while explicitly noting: “This model knows nothing of the fluctuations in Earth’s rotation rate.” The authors’ point was that AAM can still be useful for predicting or assessing rotation variability even when rotation itself is not a changing model state.
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Other researchers calculate rotation effects after a climate simulation. A 2026 study in npj Climate and Atmospheric Science analyzed large ensembles from three climate models, deriving motion AAM from zonal winds and mass AAM from surface pressure. It translated changes in total AAM into LOD anomalies using angular-momentum conservation, and applied an inverted-barometer approximation for the ocean’s response to atmospheric pressure loading. This is a diagnostic workflow: the climate-model output is used to estimate the rotation response, rather than establishing that the model simulated rotation feedback internally.
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How researchers connect models with observations
Mass-redistribution estimates combine observations and models because no single measurement describes every reservoir and period. NASA’s JPL visualization uses GRACE measurements of continental mass change, alongside model-based solutions for associated ocean redistribution, for 2003–2015. For 1900–2000, it assembles modeled mass transport involving ice sheets, glaciers, reservoir impoundment, groundwater depletion, glacial rebound and mantle convection.
NASA’s 2024 account of studies on polar motion and LOD reports that the spin axis meandered about 30 feet (10 meters) over the preceding 120 years. It also summarizes a machine-learning study attributing 90% of recurring polar-motion fluctuations from 1900 to 2018 to groundwater, ice sheets, glaciers and sea level, with most of the remainder associated with Earth-interior dynamics. That percentage is an attribution reported for those recurring fluctuations and that study period, not a universal explanation for all polar motion.
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The same NASA account reports that ice and groundwater movement was attributed to an LOD increase of 1.33 milliseconds per century during 2000–2018. For earlier periods of the prior century, the summarized estimates ranged from 0.3 to 1.0 milliseconds per century. These are study-derived rates for specified periods, not a single constant applied to every climate era.
What projections say—and what they do not
NASA’s 2024 summary describes a high-emissions estimate of up to 2.62 milliseconds per century of climate-related LOD increase under continued high emissions, compared with an average 2.4 milliseconds per century from lunar tidal friction. The 2.62 figure is a scenario-dependent projection, not an observation or a guaranteed outcome. Separately, the 2026 AAM study examined the SSP3-7.0 scenario using 100 CESM2-LE, 40 ACCESS-ESM-1.5 and 50 MIROC6 simulations; its ensemble design and focus on atmospheric angular momentum are not directly interchangeable with estimates of ice- and groundwater-driven mass redistribution.
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When comparing results, check which quantity is reported—polar motion, LOD or both—and whether the analysis concerns atmospheric AAM or mass shifts in ice and water. Also note the period and time scale, the use of observations, reanalysis or climate-model output, and the emissions scenario and ensemble design. Those choices shape what a result means and how broadly it can be applied.
The practical takeaway
Climate models provide important information about changing winds, pressure and mass flows. Researchers use these fields, observations and geophysical calculations to estimate how those changes affect Earth’s rotation. In many cases the rotation response is diagnosed outside the climate simulation, so it would be inaccurate to assume that a standard climate model automatically changes its rotation rate as climate evolves. This is a common workflow, not a claim that no specialized model can ever couple rotation back into climate.
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