Climate change also affects, albeit slightly, the length of the day.

he Climate change She has multiple Effects In our planet New studies now indicate an increase, albeit a small one, in Length of the day And the axis of rotation changed LandThis is due to the loss of ice blocks from green land And the Antarctica.

Two studies involving the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH) suggest that water from the polar regions is flowing into the oceans, especially towards the equatorial region, resulting in a mass shift that affects the planet’s rotation.

It’s like an ice skater spinning, keeping her arms close to her body first and then spreading them out. He explains that the initially fast rotation becomes slower because the masses move away from the axis of rotation, increasing the body’s inertia. Benedict Soga, From Ethereum

In physics we talk about the law of conservation of angular momentum, which governs the Earth’s rotation, which if slowed down would lead to longer days.

Therefore, “climate change also changes the length of the day on Earth, albeit only slightly,” ETH says in a statement.

For thousands of years, the length of the day has gradually increased by a few milliseconds per century (ms/year), largely due to the Moon’s gravity, which gradually slows the Earth’s rotation.

However, the loss of ice sheets and glaciers has had an increasing impact, according to a study published today in PNAS in which researchers examined the impact of climate change-induced sea level rise on day length since 1900.

Climate change is causing the day to be a few fractions of a second longer than the current 86,400 seconds, as water flows from the poles to lower latitudes and thus slows the rotation.

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Sea level fluctuations have caused day length to vary by between 0.3 and 1.0 milliseconds per year during the 20th century, a factor that has increased to 1.33 milliseconds per year since 2000.

If greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise unabated, the effect could reach 2.62 milliseconds per year by the end of the 21st century, exceeding lunar tidal friction.

“Humans have a greater impact on our planet than we think, and this naturally imposes a great responsibility on us for the future of our planet,” Suga said.

The second study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, showed that mass changes on and within the Earth’s surface caused by melting ice also shift the axis of rotation.

However, “there is no cause for concern, as these effects are minor and unlikely to pose a risk,” the statement said.

Although the Earth’s rotation changes only slowly, this effect must be taken into account when traveling through space, for example, when sending a space probe to land on another planet, Suga says.

Even a slight deviation of just one centimeter on the ground can translate into a deviation of hundreds of meters over vast distances.

With information from EFE

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