Climate crisis is making days longer, study finds

[Uncle Joe]

Melting of ice is slowing planet’s rotation and could disrupt internet traffic, financial transactions and GPS

(snip)

The change in the length of the day is on the scale of milliseconds but this is enough to potentially disrupt internet traffic, financial transactions and GPS navigation, all of which rely on precise timekeeping.

The length of the Earth’s day has been steadily reducing over geological time due to the gravitational drag of the moon on the planet’s oceans and land. However, the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets due to human-caused global heating has been redistributing water stored at high latitudes into the world’s oceans, leading to more water in the seas nearer the equator. This makes the Earth more oblate – or fatter – slowing the rotation of the planet and lengthening the day.

The planetary impact of humanity was also demonstrated recently by research that showed the redistribution of water had caused the Earth’s axis of rotation – the north and south poles – to move. Other work has revealed that humanity’s carbon emissions are shrinking the stratosphere.

“We can see our impact as humans on the whole Earth system, not just locally, like the rise in temperature, but really fundamentally, altering how it moves in space and rotates,” said Prof Benedikt Soja of ETH Zurich in Switzerland. “Due to our carbon emissions, we have done this in just 100 or 200 years. Whereas the governing processes previously had been going on for billions of years, and that is striking.”

(snip)

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jul/15/climate-crisis-making-days-longer-study

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Will the slowing rotation screw up Greenwich Time?

No more 24 hours in a day?

[Igel]

3. We already have the occasional leap second.

Leap seconds have been around since we chucked Sun-based timekeeping. Still 24 hours in an official day.

[progressoid]

2. Fake.

Everybody knows that God wouldn't allow this to happen.

[Bayard]

4. I think disruption of internet traffic, financial transactions and GPS are the least of our worries....

[Uncle Joe]

5. I agree Bayard, but it does reflect how even the slightest variations of what humanity has evolved with

can have dramatic consequences on our illusory societal cocoons.

Depending on how severe these aforementioned disruptions become.

The "canaries in the coal mine," that even those living in ivory towers may not be able to ignore.