Astronomers and physicists confirmed that the Earth rotates faster, and that it recently recorded its shortest day ever.
On June 29 this year, the Earth made one complete revolution about 1.59 milliseconds shorter than the average day length of 86,400 seconds, or 24 hours. While the 1.59ms decline in day length may not seem like much, it is part of a larger and worrisome trend.
And on July 26, 2022, a new record was set when the Earth ended its day at 1.50 milliseconds lower than usual, according to the British newspaper The Guardian and the time-tracking website Time and Date.
Not the first time!
These events suggest that 2020 saw the most short number of days since scientists began using atomic clocks to take daily measurements in the 1960s. Scientists first began noticing this in 2016.
“Since 2016, the Earth has started to accelerate at a faster rate than it was in 2020 and 2021,” Leonid Zotov, an astronomer at Lomonosov Moscow State University, told CBS News.
Zotov recently published a study on what may cause changes in the Earth’s rotation, in which he suggested that these fluctuations may be caused by the tides on the Earth.
The Russian scientist points out that this does not happen often, but if it continues, atomic time – the universal way that time is measured on Earth – may have to be changed. Some scientists suggest introducing a “negative leap second” to overcome the time difference. “Since we cannot change the arrows of the clock associated with the rotation of the Earth, we can adjust the scale of the atomic clock,” Zotov says.
The idea of a negative leap second is based on subtracting one second from the day to keep the world on track with the atomic time system. Since 1972, leap seconds have been added every few years to adjust the time and the last addition was in 2016.
“Devastating” solutions
However, a number of physicists, astronomers and engineers oppose the continuation of the leap second idea, because it could lead to widespread and devastating technical problems. In this context, two researchers at Meta (formerly Facebook) have published a blog on the topic, which supports an industry-wide effort to discontinue the idea of leap seconds.
“Companies like Meta have simulated this event, and its implementation is likely to lead to devastating and unpredictable power and internet outages around the world,” engineers and researchers Oleg Obliukhov and Ahmed Biakoy told CBS News. »
The engineers wrote in the Meta blog: “While positive leap seconds may cause a time jump, leading to IT software crashes or even data corruption, implementing negative leap seconds would be much worse, as it could cause hardware software damage. Global timekeeping.
The engineers believe that one of the many factors contributing to the speed of Earth’s rotation could be the frequency of melting and refreezing of ice caps on the world’s highest mountains. They emphasized that it is more about physics, where every atom moving on the planet at a different speed contributes to the momentum of the “Earth’s angular velocity.”
While scientists know that the length of days on Earth decreases in the short term, the final cause is still not clear, and all the effects that will result from this, especially on us as humans, have not yet been identified.
“Keeping up the rate of Earth’s rotation is a complex business,” Judah Levine, a physicist in the time and frequency division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, tells Discover magazine. It is related to the degree of the Earth’s tilt, the height of the atmosphere, the effects of the oceans, the effect of the approaching and moving away of the moon,” adding that “it is not possible to predict what will happen in the distant future as a result of the decrease in the length of the Earth’s day. »
But Fred Watson, an Australian astronomer, told ABC News in Australia that if nothing was done to stop this, “the four seasons will gradually come off the calendar.”
“When you start to look at the real minute details, you realize that the Earth is not just a solid, spinning ball,” said Watson. “It has molten liquid in its core, it has other liquids on its back, it has an atmosphere and all of these things don’t stop moving and are affected by this.” The accelerating rate of Earth’s rotation. »
Emad Hassan