What effects does climate change have on the solar system? (thinking bigger picture)

The Earth is surrounded by a blanket of gases - these keep in the sun's heat, as well as water, and air. Without this atmosphere, the Earth would be a cold, dead rock in space.

The climate is something that happens inside Earth's atmosphere. If you head out into space, there's no climate. So climate change doesn't really affect the solar system outside Earth.

But, if you were to video the Earth from space for several years, and then play back that video speeded up, you'd see that as the Earth spins, it wobbles on its axis. These wobbles are because the Earth isn't a perfect sphere - and in fact it changes shape! As it changes shape, this affects the Earth's gravitational field, and makes it wobble differently.

Guess what causes the Earth to change shape? Well one of the causes is climate change! This can happen in several ways. One way is that as ice in Greenland and Antarctica melts, there is less weight on that part of the Earth, and this makes it change shape. Scientists also think that as changes in weather patterns - like El Niño - move water around the world's oceans, this also affects the planet's shape. The study of how the Earth changes shape is called geodesy.