Climate change is changing how we keep time

The rapid melting of the ice sheets atop Greenland and Antarctica, as measured by satellite-based gravitational measurements, is shifting more mass toward Earth’s waistline. And that extra bulge is. That climate change–driven mass shift is throwing a new wrench into international timekeeping standards.

The internationally agreed-upon coordinated universal time, or UTC, is set by atomic clocks, but that time is regularly adjusted to match Earth’s actual spin. Earth’s rotation isn’t always smooth sailing — the speed of the planet’s spin changes depending on a variety of factors, including gravitational drag from the sun and the moon, changes to the rotation speed of Earth’s core, friction between ocean waters and the seafloor, and shifts in the planet’s distribution of mass around its surface.

But the impact of that quake is much smaller than that of the ice sheets’ melting — a point that Agnew says he finds particularly startling. Humankind “has done something that affects, measurably, the rotation rate of the entire Earth.”,” an extra tick that international timekeepers agreed to add to UTC as needed . That slowdown will ultimately mean that timekeepers, under the current system, must begin removing leap seconds from the UTC, rather than inserting them, to keep things in sync.

That shift in strategy might have begun as soon as in 2026. But the study suggests that, thanks to climate change, global timekeepers now have an extra two or three years before they need to adjust, notes geophysicist Jerry Mitrovica of Harvard University. But no realistic projections of future melting can forestall the inevitable beyond 2030, Mitrovica adds: One way or another, the world is going to have to start losing time — or international timekeeping guidelines will need to change.

Australia Australia Latest News, Australia Australia Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

Climate change and polar ice melting could be impacting the length of Earth's dayRobert Lea is a science journalist in the U.K. whose articles have been published in Physics World, New Scientist, Astronomy Magazine, All About Space, Newsweek and ZME Science. He also writes about science communication for Elsevier and the European Journal of Physics. Rob holds a bachelor of science degree in physics and astronomy from the U.K.
Source: SPACEdotcom - 🏆 92. / 67 Read more »

You don’t have to admit there’s a climate crisis to be fighting climate changeAlthough many Americans and policy wonks see climate change as the major existential issue of our time, it ends up feeling like a relatively small piece of the American political conversation, which is more focused on the economy, immigration and democracy.
Source: cnni - 🏆 326. / 59 Read more »

Big Oil's favorite climate solution is 'like trying to push water uphill,' climate chief saysJim Skea, the head of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, warned on Tuesday that scaling up carbon capture still faces significant challenges.
Source: CNBC - 🏆 12. / 72 Read more »