Mar 29, 2024 12:09 AM
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2...iksdQolsCk
INTRO: Climate change is messing with time itself.
The melting of polar ice due to global warming is affecting Earth’s rotation and could have an impact on precision timekeeping, according to a paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
The planet is not about to jerk to a halt, nor speed up so rapidly that everyone gets flung into space. But timekeeping is an exact science in a highly technological society, which is why global authorities more than half a century ago felt compelled by the slight changes in Earth’s rotation to invent the concept of the “leap second.”
Climate change is now making these calculations even more complicated: In just a few years it may be necessary to insert a “negative leap second” into the calendar to get the planet’s rotation in sync with Coordinated Universal Time.
“Global warming is managing to actually measurably affect the rotation of the entire Earth,” said study author Duncan Agnew, a geophysicist at the University of California at San Diego. “Things are happening that have not happened before.” (MORE - details)
INTRO: Climate change is messing with time itself.
The melting of polar ice due to global warming is affecting Earth’s rotation and could have an impact on precision timekeeping, according to a paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
The planet is not about to jerk to a halt, nor speed up so rapidly that everyone gets flung into space. But timekeeping is an exact science in a highly technological society, which is why global authorities more than half a century ago felt compelled by the slight changes in Earth’s rotation to invent the concept of the “leap second.”
Climate change is now making these calculations even more complicated: In just a few years it may be necessary to insert a “negative leap second” into the calendar to get the planet’s rotation in sync with Coordinated Universal Time.
“Global warming is managing to actually measurably affect the rotation of the entire Earth,” said study author Duncan Agnew, a geophysicist at the University of California at San Diego. “Things are happening that have not happened before.” (MORE - details)