Climate change is causing the days to get longer. This is clear from new Swiss research. According to Detlef van Vuuren, a climate scientist and professor at Utrecht University, the days are probably already getting longer due to climate change. Although this is a very small effect, lasting only a few milliseconds per century.

That makes this research particularly symbolic, says Van Vuuren. “It shows that people have an impact on all sorts of systems. It used to be thought that humans had no impact on climate, but now it seems that we have an impact on the speed of rotation. In that sense it has a symbolic meaning.”

The lengthening of the days is ultimately due to the melting of the ice caps as a result of climate change. The ice that is now on the land of Antarctica and Greenland is melting due to global warming. As a result, it ends up in the ocean, and its weight is distributed on the land in a different way.

Rotational Speed

“Think of it like an ice dancer spinning on her axis and so you can influence her speed,” explains van Vuuren. “If you change her mass, she will spin faster or slower. The same thing happens with the Earth: when the mass moves, the speed of rotation changes.

As a result, the days eventually become longer. Although, according to the climate scientist, there is not much difference that would be noticeable to humans. However, this change could disrupt GPS locations or internet traffic, because these systems are sensitive to millisecond changes. “But we are already prepared for that, because earthquakes also have an impact on that,” Van Vuuren qualifies.