Last month, clocks across most of Europe and the UK shifted forward by an hour for Daylight Saving Time. For most, this is a yearly adjustment that signals the beginning of summer with longer days and shorter nights.
While this is a small, routine change, Earth itself is changing in a different, subtle way. According to a new study by University of Vienna and ETH Zurich researchers, it is rotating at a slower speed, and days are actually getting longer. This concerning shift is caused by changes in the climate.
As explained by Benedikt Soja, professor of Space Geodesy at ETH Zurich and co-author of the study, increase in day length “can thus be attributed primarily to human influences.”
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The science behind it
As polar ice sheets and mountain glaciers melt, the water spreads from the poles towards the equator. This alters the shape of the Earth and slows its rotation, creating an effect similar to that of a figure skater spinning more slowly once they stretch out their arms.
The researchers from the University of Vienna and ETH Zurich successfully reconstructed ancient day-length fluctuations using the fossil remains of single-celled marine organisms known as benthic foraminifera. The chemical composition of these fossils can infer sea-level fluctuations and help scientists derive the corresponding changes in day length.
Previous studies showed that “from 2000 to 2020, our days were lengthened by 1.33 milliseconds per century due to climate-related factors.” The new study shows that this “rapid rise” in day length is “unparalleled over the last 3.6 million years.”
Benedikt Soja warns that climate change is predicted to affect day length more significantly than the moon by the end of the 21st century, with scientists estimating an increase in the length of a day by 2.62 milliseconds by the end of the century if the world continues to warm due to heat-trapping emissions.
Why milliseconds matter
According to the researchers, these changes are unlikely to impact human biology, such as sleep cycles and circadian rhythms.
However, they may potentially trigger bigger problems in a contemporary world that relies heavily on technology. For example, accurate time measures are crucial for computing systems such as GPS and space navigation, which use atomic time based on the frequency of certain atoms.
In addition, these findings shed more light on the impacts of human-driven climate change and how they manifest, even spilling into how we experience time. They serve as a crucial reminder that our actions can affect planet Earth in ways that we may not anticipate, yet still carry real consequences.
Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed here by the authors are their own, not those of Impakter.com — In the Cover Photo: Planet Earth. Cover Photo Credit: Mara F
