Earth sets record for shortest day, Climate Change may be the reason

Assamese

• Earth’s spinning rate has been increasing and recently a new record was set by the planet for the shortest day
• The phenomenon of the Earth spinning faster on its axis is likely being caused by climate change
• Earth’s rotation is affected by changes in the distribution of the planet’s mass relative to its axis of rotation
• A faster rotation means stronger cyclones and hurricanes

On June 29, this year, the Earth completed a full rotation on its axis in 1.59 milliseconds less than the usual 24 hours. While doing this, the planet set a new record for the shortest day. Further, on July 26, the Earth almost broke the record again by completing a full spin 1.50 milliseconds shorter than 24 hours.

Increased spinning rate

According to reports, the Earth’s spinning rate has been increasing recently. The Earth witnessed its shortest month ever calculated since the 1960s in 2020. Since the beginning of 2020, every day was less than the standard 24 hours. The all-time shortest day was calculated that year on July 19 when the planet completed a full rotation on its axis in 1.47 milliseconds less than the standard 24 hours. In 2021, Earth continued to rotate on its axis at an increased rate but did not set any new records.

Climate Change is making Earth spin faster

Glaciers are melting at an increased rate due to human-induced carbon emissions which are heating up the planet leading to climate change. As a result, Earth’s mass is getting redistributed with fewer frozen bodies in the north and south poles and more mass in the form of water causing sea levels to rise. This is leading to the Earth spinning faster on its axis as the time taken by Earth to complete one rotation is affected by changes in the distribution of the planet’s mass relative to its axis of rotation.

Paul Delaney, York University astronomy and physics professor, told CTV that this phenomenon of Earth spinning faster on its axis is likely being caused by climate change.

“There is such [sic] a lot of ice that is becoming liquid and… as a consequence of that you’re changing the way the mass on the surface of the Earth is situated,” Delaney said. “When you bring the amount of material, the amount of mass, closer to our rotation axis that actually spins up our rotation rate a little bit faster.”

Felix Landerer of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, Germany explained, “Think of an ice skater who is spinning. You stretch your arms out to slow down, and when you bring your arms close to your body you spin faster.”

To understand Landerer’s analogy, “Earth is bringing its arms, or glacier mass, to its axis, or waist, making the Earth rotate faster”.

Landerer and his team found that due to global warming and melting ice caps, changes in density and circulation of water will cause a large transfer of mass closer to Earth’s axis of rotation which will increase the speed of Earth’s rotation.

Effects of Earth’s increased rate of rotation

Scientists have found that although presently Earth’s increased pace of rotation might not be exhibiting visible effects, the continued rise in global warming will lead to the Earth spinning even faster in the future and create catastrophic and disastrous events.

A faster rotation means stronger cyclones and hurricanes. Steve Hench, retired computational scientist and physicist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, said, “The Coriolis effect, which is the influence of the earth’s rotation on the movement of large-scale atmospheric and ocean currents would be stronger. This might result in more intense and smaller-scale cyclonic behaviours.”

Faster rotation also means that the water from the oceans will accumulate at the equator. If the speed of Earth’s rotation continues to keep on increasing a time may come when the equator will be flooded and start to drown.

Meanwhile, scientists have expressed fears that if this trend of faster rotation of the Earth continues, it may lead to the introduction of the first ever ‘negative leap second’. A negative leap second is a second subtracted from clocks to keep them in sync with the rotation of the Earth. “If Earth’s fast rotation continues, it could lead to the introduction of the first-ever negative leap second,” astrophysicist Graham Jones said to TimeandDate.com.

But the negative leap second might lead to issues for IT systems. Meta recently published stated that the leap second is a “risky practice that does more harm than good”.

In the end of it, it is important to note that the speed of Earth’s rotation will only increase if global warming continues to accelerate contributing to increased climate change. Thus, it is crucial to understand the effects of climate change now and encourage immediate climate action to prevent a climate emergency in the near future.