Ice Cap Melting Slowing Earth's Spin, Prolonging Days
A study released on Monday reveals that the melting of the polar ice caps is making the Earth spin more slowly, which is lengthening the days at an "unprecedented" rate.
TroibNews 
The urgency of the climate crisis is widely acknowledged.
According to a study released on Monday, the melting polar ice caps are slowing Earth's rotation, thus lengthening days at an "unprecedented" rate.
The research, which appeared in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, identifies the flow of water from Greenland and Antarctica as contributing to an increase in mass around the equator, stated Surendra Adhikari of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, one of the study's co-authors.
"It's like when a figure skater does a pirouette, first holding her arms close to her body and then stretching them out," explained Benedikt Soja of ETH Zurich, another co-author.
"The initially fast rotation becomes slower because the masses move away from the axis of rotation, increasing physical inertia."
While Earth is often described as a sphere, it's more precisely an "oblate spheroid," slightly bulging at the equator, similar to a satsuma.
Additionally, Earth's shape is in constant flux due to daily tidal impacts altering the oceans and crusts, long-term tectonic plate drift, and sudden changes from earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
The paper utilized various observational methods, including Very Long Baseline Interferometry. This technique allows scientists to measure the time difference for radio signals from space to reach different Earth locations, helping infer changes in the planet's orientation and day length.
It also incorporated data from the Global Positioning System, which can measure Earth's rotation to an accuracy of about one-hundredth of a millisecond, and even reviewed ancient eclipse records spanning millennia.
Implications for space travel
A decrease in Earth's rotational speed results in days becoming longer by a few milliseconds from the standard 86,400 seconds.
A major current factor contributing to this slowdown is the moon's gravitational pull, which through "tidal friction" has caused a gradual deceleration of 2.40 milliseconds per century over millions of years.
However, the study makes the surprising claim that if human greenhouse gas emissions continue at a high rate, the climate's warming effects will surpass the moon's influence by the end of the 21st century, according to Adhikari.
Since 1900, climate change has added about 0.8 milliseconds to the length of days. Under the worst-case scenario of high emissions, climate change alone may extend days by 2.2 milliseconds by 2100.
While this change might seem insignificant and imperceptible to humans,
"There are definitely a lot of implications for space and Earth navigation," remarked Adhikari.
Accurately knowing Earth's orientation is vital for space communication, such as with the Voyager probes now far beyond our solar system, where even a slight misalignment can result in substantial navigation errors over long distances.
Thomas Evans contributed to this report for TROIB News
According to a study released on Monday, the melting polar ice caps are slowing Earth's rotation, thus lengthening days at an "unprecedented" rate.
The research, which appeared in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, identifies the flow of water from Greenland and Antarctica as contributing to an increase in mass around the equator, stated Surendra Adhikari of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, one of the study's co-authors.
"It's like when a figure skater does a pirouette, first holding her arms close to her body and then stretching them out," explained Benedikt Soja of ETH Zurich, another co-author.
"The initially fast rotation becomes slower because the masses move away from the axis of rotation, increasing physical inertia."
While Earth is often described as a sphere, it's more precisely an "oblate spheroid," slightly bulging at the equator, similar to a satsuma.
Additionally, Earth's shape is in constant flux due to daily tidal impacts altering the oceans and crusts, long-term tectonic plate drift, and sudden changes from earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
The paper utilized various observational methods, including Very Long Baseline Interferometry. This technique allows scientists to measure the time difference for radio signals from space to reach different Earth locations, helping infer changes in the planet's orientation and day length.
It also incorporated data from the Global Positioning System, which can measure Earth's rotation to an accuracy of about one-hundredth of a millisecond, and even reviewed ancient eclipse records spanning millennia.
Implications for space travel
A decrease in Earth's rotational speed results in days becoming longer by a few milliseconds from the standard 86,400 seconds.
A major current factor contributing to this slowdown is the moon's gravitational pull, which through "tidal friction" has caused a gradual deceleration of 2.40 milliseconds per century over millions of years.
However, the study makes the surprising claim that if human greenhouse gas emissions continue at a high rate, the climate's warming effects will surpass the moon's influence by the end of the 21st century, according to Adhikari.
Since 1900, climate change has added about 0.8 milliseconds to the length of days. Under the worst-case scenario of high emissions, climate change alone may extend days by 2.2 milliseconds by 2100.
While this change might seem insignificant and imperceptible to humans,
"There are definitely a lot of implications for space and Earth navigation," remarked Adhikari.
Accurately knowing Earth's orientation is vital for space communication, such as with the Voyager probes now far beyond our solar system, where even a slight misalignment can result in substantial navigation errors over long distances.
Thomas Evans contributed to this report for TROIB News
