Earth's changing spin is threatening to toy with our sense of time, clocks and computerized society in an unprecedented way — but only for a second.Related video above — Daylight Saving Time: How did we get here?For the first time in history, world timekeepers may have to consider subtracting a second from our clocks in a few years because the planet is rotating a tad faster than it used to.
'In 2016 or 2017, or maybe 2018, the slowdown rate had slowed down to the point that the Earth was actually speeding up,' Levine said.Earth's speeding up because its hot liquid core — 'a large ball of molten fluid' — acts in unpredictable ways, with eddies and flows that vary, Agnew said.Agnew said the core has been triggering a speedup for about 50 years, but the rapid melting of ice at the poles since 1990 masked that effect.