CLIMATE CHANGE IS CONTRIBUTING TO LONGER DAYS NEW STUDY FINDS

Our world is suffering greatly from global warming, which is causing heat waves and hurricanes to get stronger. Scientists have discovered yet another effect of climate change: the planet's rotation is slowing down, somewhat lengthening the day. The lengthening of the day is a result of glacier melting, which also puts animals and coastal communities in danger. The mass of the meltwater is redirected toward the equator as it flows into the oceans from places like Greenland and Antarctica. The middle of our planet becomes thicker as a result, changing its shape and making the Earth's rotation take longer than usual.

Even though the change is so minute that it is not perceptible to humans—milliseconds, to be exact—it has an impact on global computer networks that manage power grids, financial transactions, and navigation. National Institute of Standards and Technology physicist Judah Levine told NPR, "Everyday life is not sensitive at the one-second level." "Technology might exist, but people often use it without fully appreciating its sensitivity."

Scientists from the Department of Physics at the University of Alberta, the Institute of Geodesy and Photogrammetry at ETH Zurich, and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory collaborated on this discovery, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The Moon has had the greatest impact on day length for millennia. It pulls Earth in a direction that causes the oceans to swell in its direction. However, according to Benedikt Soja, another study author, climate change may take centre stage. "We need to take into account that our actions are impacting Earth's orientation in space to the extent that we are dominating effects that have existed for billions of years," he stated to CNN.

Another author of the study, Surendra Adhikari, said, "This is a testament to the gravity of ongoing climate change." A concerning image is painted by her reflection. "We will have changed the Earth's climate system so much that we are seeing its effects on the planet's rotation in just 200 years," the speaker asserts.