Climate change is causing days to get longer — but how?
New research reveals that humans may now be messing with time on Earth resulting in longer days
July 17, 2024
A new study has shown that the effects of human-induced climate change are so significant that they are actually affecting time itself on Earth.
Earlier this week, a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, revealed that the speed of Earth's rotation is being largely affected by the significant polar ice melt caused by global warming, resulting in longer days, ABC7 reported.
In the past, the impact of climate change on time "has not been so dramatic," said Benedikt Soja, a study author and assistant professor of space geodesy at the Swiss university ETH Zurich.
But, according to Soja, that could be changing.
If the world continues to pump out planet-heating pollution, "climate change could become the new dominant factor," outpacing the moon's role in slowing down Earth's rotation.
Although the changes are occurring in milliseconds a day, they have have an important impact on computing systems that people have come to rely on, including GPS in today’s high-tech, hyperconnected world.
"This is a testament to the gravity of ongoing climate change," said Surendra Adhikari, a geophysicist at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and a report author.
Climate change-fueled sea level rise caused the length of a day to vary between 0.3 and 1 milliseconds in the 20th century.
However, over the past two decades, the scientists calculated an increase in day length of 1.33 milliseconds per century, "significantly higher than at any time in the 20th century," according to the report.
If planet-heating pollution continues to rise, warming the oceans and accelerating ice loss in Greenland and Antarctica, the rate of change is set to soar, the report found.
If the world is unable to rein in emissions, climate change could increase the length of a day by 2.62 milliseconds by the end of the century.
"In barely 200 years, we will have altered the Earth's climate system so much that we are witnessing its impact on the very way Earth spins," Adhikari told CNN.
