The climate crisis is making the days longer. turns up From new research. Right now, it’s a matter of milliseconds, but that’s enough to disrupt internet traffic, financial transactions, and GPS navigation, because all of this depends on very precise timekeeping.

The number of days has been increasing since the Earth existed. This has to do with the gravitational pull of the moon on the oceans and the land mass. So far, nothing new. But the problem is that in the last 200 years the Earth’s rotation has slowed down as much as it has in several billion years. This is due to human actions.

The melting of the ice caps of Greenland and Antarctica due to the human-induced climate crisis has unbalanced the distribution of Earth’s water. Most of the water mass that used to be in high latitudes is now concentrated in seas near the equator. As a result, the Earth has expanded around its center, which in turn has slowed the planet’s rotation. This is a process that is still ongoing. In addition, increased carbon dioxide emissions are shrinking the stratosphere.

According to the researchers, the extra rotation time currently stands at 1 millisecond per cycle (ms/cy). This is likely to remain the case in the coming decades, even if greenhouse gas emissions are limited. If emissions are not reduced, the delay will increase to 2.6 ms/year by 2100.

Search is Published In the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.