The imperceptible change in the length of the day by milliseconds can cause disruptions in systems that require precise timekeeping.
The Earth is rotating more slowly due to global warming, which is causing the length of the day to increase at an unprecedented rate, found Mostafa Kiani Shahvandi from the University of Vienna and Benedikt Soja from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, as reported by Deutsche Welle. The results of their research were published in the scientific journal Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth.
Currently, the day is lengthening by about 1.33 milliseconds per century. Its duration is constantly changing, but almost as quickly as from 2000 to 2020, the speed of the Earth's rotation changed only once - about two million years ago, the scientists claim. They analyzed data from the last 3.6 million years.
According to the researchers, the reason lies in the melting of the polar ice caps, which causes large masses of water to move closer to the equator and further from the planet's axis, slowing its rotation. The authors of the study point out that the imperceptible change in the length of the day by milliseconds can cause disruptions in systems that require precise timekeeping, such as GPS navigation.
