{"id":17365,"date":"2024-03-28T12:46:38","date_gmt":"2024-03-28T12:46:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/28\/polar-ice-is-melting-and-changing-earths-rotation-its-messing-with-time-itself\/"},"modified":"2024-03-28T12:46:38","modified_gmt":"2024-03-28T12:46:38","slug":"polar-ice-is-melting-and-changing-earths-rotation-its-messing-with-time-itself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/28\/polar-ice-is-melting-and-changing-earths-rotation-its-messing-with-time-itself\/","title":{"rendered":"Polar ice is melting and changing Earth\u2019s rotation. It\u2019s messing with time itself"},"content":{"rendered":"

One day in the next couple of years, everyone in the world will lose a second of their time. Exactly when that will happen is being influenced by humans, according to a new study, as melting polar ice <\/strong>alters <\/strong>the Earth\u2019s rotation and changes time itself. <\/p>\n

The hours and minutes that dictate our days are determined by Earth\u2019s rotation. But that rotation is not constant; it can change ever so slightly, depending on what\u2019s happening on Earth\u2019s surface and in its molten core. <\/p>\n

These nearly imperceptible changes occasionally mean the world\u2019s clocks need to be adjusted by a \u201cleap second,\u201d which may sound tiny but can have a big impact on computing systems. <\/p>\n

Plenty of seconds have been added over the years. But after a long trend of slowing, the Earth\u2019s rotation is now speeding up because of changes in its core. For the first time ever, a second will need to be taken off. <\/p>\n

\u201cA negative leap second has never been added or tested, so the problems it could create are without precedent,\u201d Patrizia Tavella, a member of the Time Department at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in France, wrote in an article accompanying the study. <\/p>\n

But exactly when this will happen is being influenced by global warming, according to the study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. Melting polar ice is delaying the leap second by three years, pushing it from 2026 to 2029, the report found. <\/p>\n

\u201cPart of figuring out what is going to happen in global timekeeping \u2026 is dependent on understanding what is happening with the global warming effect,\u201d said Duncan Agnew, professor of geophysics at the University of California San Diego and the study\u2019s author. <\/p>\n

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Related article<\/span> Tens of millions of people in this country drink arsenic-contaminated water. It could get a lot worse<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Before 1955, a second was defined as a specific fraction of the time the Earth took to rotate once in relation to the stars. Then came the era of highly precise atomic clocks, which proved a much more stable way of defining a physical second. <\/p>\n

From the late 1960s, the world started using coordinated universal time (UTC) to set time zones. UTC relies on atomic clocks but still keeps pace with the planet\u2019s rotation. <\/p>\n

But as the rotation speed is not constant, the two timescales slowly diverge. This means a \u201cleap second\u201d must be added every now and then to bring them back into alignment. <\/p>\n

Changes in Earth\u2019s rotation over the long term have been dominated by the friction of the tides on the ocean floor \u2014 which has slowed down its rotation. Recently, the impacts of melting polar ice, driven by humans burning planet-heating fossil fuels, have become a significant factor, Agnew said. As the ice melts into the ocean, meltwater moves from the poles toward the equator, which further <\/strong>slows the speed of the Earth\u2019s rotation. <\/p>\n

Ted Scambos, a glaciologist at the University of Colorado Boulder who was not involved in the study, describes the process like a figure skater spinning with their arms over their head. As they bring their arms down toward their shoulders, their spin slows. <\/p>\n

Polar ice melt \u201chas been large enough to noticeably affect the rotation of the entire Earth in a way that is unprecedented,\u201d Agnew said. \u201cTo me, the fact that human beings have caused the rotation of the Earth to change is kind of amazing.\u201d <\/p>\n

But while melting ice may be slowing the Earth\u2019s spin, there\u2019s another factor at play when it comes to global timekeeping, according to the report: processes in the Earth\u2019s core. <\/p>\n

The planet\u2019s <\/strong>liquid core spins independently of its solid outer shell. If the core slows down, the solid shell <\/strong>speeds up to maintain momentum, Agnew said, and that is what\u2019s currently happening. <\/p>\n

Very little is known about what\u2019s going on roughly 1,800 miles below the Earth\u2019s surface, and it\u2019s not clear why the core\u2019s speed is changing. \u201cIt\u2019s fundamentally unpredictable,\u201d said Agnew. <\/p>\n

But what is clear, according to the study, is that despite polar ice melt exerting a slowing influence, overall the Earth\u2019s rotation is speeding up. That means the world will soon need to subtract a second for the first time. <\/p>\n

\u201cA second doesn\u2019t sound like much,\u201d Agnew said, but computing systems set up for activities such as stock exchange transactions need to be accurate to a thousandth of a second. <\/p>\n

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Related article<\/span> Ten photographs that made the world wake up to climate change<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Many computer systems have software enabling them to add a second, but few have the capability to subtract one. Humans will need to reprogram computers, introducing the potential for error. <\/p>\n

\u201cNobody really anticipated that the Earth would speed up to the point where we might have to remove a leap second,\u201d Agnew said. <\/p>\n

Scambos, the University of Colorado Boulder glaciologist, said the \u201cbig deal\u201d of the study is that it shows \u201cchanges from the Earth\u2019s core are now trending bigger than the trends in loss of ice from the poles \u2014 even though ice loss has picked up in the last decade.\u201d <\/p>\n

For Agnew, the findings could be a powerful tool to connect people with the ways humans are changing the planet. <\/p>\n

\u201cBeing able to say so much ice has melted that it\u2019s actually changed the rotation of the Earth by a measurable amount, I think gives you the sense, OK, this is a big deal.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One day in the next couple of years, everyone in the world will lose a second of their time. Exactly when that will happen is being influenced by humans, according to a new study, as melting polar ice alters the Earth\u2019s rotation and changes time itself. The hours and minutes that dictate our days are <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":17366,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17365","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}