Climate crisis extends days

The climate crisis is lengthening the days as melting polar ice caps change the shape of the planet, thereby affecting its rotation.

Experts told the newspaper about this. The keeper that the phenomenon is another demonstration that human behavior has wide-ranging consequences. The Earth’s spin lag has been going on for millennia, but its effects have increased markedly in the last 100 to 200 years, scientists estimate. “Considering that normal processes used to take thousands of years, this is impressive,” Benedikt Soja, a professor at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, told the same source.

The delay is only a few milliseconds, but it can be enough to impact internet communications, GPS navigation, or even, for example, banking transactions and other activities that require timely accuracy.

In a study published on the American website Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesComputer reconstructions are being conducted to estimate the effect of polar ice melt on the length of day. Between 1900 and 2000, the slowdown was between 0.3 and 1.0 milliseconds per century. However, since 2000, due to global warming, the delay is estimated at 1.3 milliseconds per century.

Santiago Belda, a researcher at the University of Alicante in Spain who was not involved in the project, says the study is a big step forward and should raise concerns because it shows the direct impact that melting polar ice caps have on our daily lives.