Climate Change is Somehow Messing with Time

The Impact of Polar Ice Melt 

It has been known for a long time that climate change has been causing polar ice caps and ice sheets, such as the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets, to melt at an alarmingly fast rate. This melting has often solicited warnings about sea level rise, habitat loss, and more. However, the melting has started to mess with time itself. When ice that is concentrated at the poles melts, the resulting meltwater then travels from the poles to near the equator, causing a reallocation of mass on Earth. Essentially, the poles become ever so slightly flatter, and the equator region of the Earth bulges. This causes the rotation of the Earth to slow slightly, effectively lengthening the duration of a day. 

The Impact of the Moon’s Gravitational Pull

However, polar ice melt due to climate change is not the only factor to blame here. Earth’s own moon has also been slowly making the Earth bulge slightly at the equators, due to its gravitational pull on the planet. In general, Earth’s oceans have been pulled by the moon’s gravity into a position where the moon has been lengthening the length of Earth’s days by a few milliseconds every century by gradually slowing down its rotation. 

So who’s to Blame?

While it’s true that the moon’s effect on Earth’s oceans has been messing with our measurements of time, research shows that climate change’s effects have actually overtaken the moon’s. Scientists have calculated that due to climate change, Earth’s days have been increasing at a rate of 1.33 milliseconds per century, which is the biggest increase we’ve ever seen. By the end of the century, if melting from polar ice continues at the same rate, the length of a day could increase by 2.62 milliseconds, completely overshadowing the moon’s effects. In addition, the impact of human induced climate change has been happening only over a short 200 year period, while the moon has been exerting gravitational forces on the Earth for billions of years. This just shows the magnitude of the effects humans have had on the moon, seeing that we’ve managed to do as much damage as we have in a shorter amount of time. 

Do a few Milliseconds Matter?

Climate change has been extending the length of a day by a couple milliseconds each century. This change is imperceptible to humans and Earth’s organisms, so why does it actually matter? The answer is technology. A lot of technology, such as GPS systems found in every smartphone on Earth, rely on precise atomic time in order to function properly. Atomic time is vital to these processes, since it is the most accurate method of measuring time that we have. If this precise timekeeping is messed up even slightly, smartphones, computers, and more would be disrupted. 

The Leap Second 

The reason for this disruption is the concept of leap seconds. It’s impossible for timekeeping to be exactly perfect, so the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) system includes slight jumps called “leap seconds” to more accurately match the rotation of the Earth. Because climate change is lengthening our days by slowing the spin of the Earth, it is now a possibility that we may not need to use as many leap seconds, or even implement negative leap seconds to compensate with the increased length of a day, which is where the problems come in. Many smart devices are programmed to assume that the value of leap seconds are positive, not negative. If we were to implement negative leap seconds, it would be the first time this has been done in history, and devices around the world would probably have a hard time adjusting since they weren’t programmed to deal with this change. This would lead to discrepancies and confusion in timekeeping globally. Overall, it seems like the ripple effects of climate change are spreading further than we thought. The fact that climate change has managed to mess up our timekeeping systems shows that this issue is more impactful than we may have realized, and that we should prioritize climate change mitigation more than ever before.

Works Cited 

BBC. “Climate change could affect timekeeping, study says.” BBC, 28 March 2024, https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-68684244. Accessed 3 December 2024.

Paddison, Laura. “Climate change is messing with time more than previously thought, scientists find.” CNN, 15 July 2024, https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/15/climate/polar-ice-melting-day-length-time/index.html. Accessed 3 December 2024.

Science News Explores. “Climate change is changing how scientists measure time.” Science News Explores, https://www.snexplores.org/article/climate-change-earth-rotation-measure-time-leap-second. Accessed 3 December 2024.