A recent study from journal nature suggests that climate change-induced ice melt from Greenland and Antarctica is affecting the Earth’s rotation speed, potentially altering timekeeping.
As these ice sheets melt, they contribute to the redistribution of mass, slightly slowing the planet’s rotation. Ice sheets are now losing mass five times faster than they were 30 years ago. Despite this, the Earth is still spinning faster than before. Consequently, global timekeepers might need to subtract a second from clocks later than previously anticipated.
This adjustment, known as a “negative leap second,” has never been used before and could pose significant challenges for global timing infrastructure, requiring the rewriting of computer programs that assume all leap seconds are positive.
The study indicates that due to accelerated ice loss, the need for a negative leap second might be postponed until 2029, rather than the initially projected 2026. However, there is skepticism regarding the study’s findings, with some experts highlighting the unpredictability of Earth’s behavior.
Nonetheless, the study underscores the profound impact of climate change on various environmental phenomena, including rapid glacier and ice sheet melting, driven primarily by human activities such as fossil fuel burning.