The rapid melting of ice sheets due to climate change might affect how we measure time, suggests a recent study published in the journal Nature.
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The study highlights that the increasing melt from glaciers and ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, triggered by rising temperatures, is altering the distribution of weight across the Earth. This subtle shift is causing a slight slowdown in the planet's rotation on its axis.
Our clocks and calendars rely on the Earth's rotation rate, regulated by scientists through Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). However, the rotation hasn't been consistently steady. In recent decades, the Earth has been spinning slightly faster than usual.
To accommodate this faster spin, timekeepers have intermittently added a "leap second" to global clocks – a practice done 27 times since the 1970s. Initially, the plan was to remove this leap second for the first time in 2026, known as the "negative leap second."
But the latest research indicates that the accelerated melting of ice in Antarctica and Greenland has acted as a brake, slowing down the rotation sufficiently to potentially postpone the need for the negative leap second until 2029 or beyond.
According to Duncan Agnew from the University of California San Diego, the study's author, this phenomenon is noteworthy as it marks a measurable change in the Earth's rotation. However, he cautions that the eventual implementation of the negative leap second adjustment could pose significant challenges for computer systems unprepared for subtracting time.
Some experts, like Demetrios Matsakis, former chief scientist for time services at the US Naval Observatory, remain skeptical. He suggests that the Earth's rotation is too unpredictable to accurately predict when, or if, the negative leap second will be necessary in the near future.
