Earth is spinning faster, leading timekeepers to consider an unprecedented move
The world turns faster this summer, shortening the days marginalized, and attracts the attention of scientists and time -processers.
According to the International World Rotation and Reference Systems Service and data from the US Naval Observatory, it was the shortest day of July 10, less than 24 hours of 1.36 milliseconds. Timeanddate.com. More exceptional short days are currently coming on July 22 and August 5, which is estimated to be shorter than 1.34 and 1.25 milliseconds, respectively.
The length of a day is the time to complete a complete rotation on the axis of the planet – 24 hours or an average of 86,400 seconds. However, in reality, each rotation is slightly irregular due to various factors such as gravity gravity of the moon, seasonal changes in the atmosphere, and the effect of the Earth’s liquid core. As a result, a complete rotation usually lasts a little less than 86,400 seconds – the inconsistency of only milliseconds without a significant effect on daily life.
However, these inconsistencies can affect computers, satellites and telecommunications in the long run, so even the smallest time deviations are monitored using atomic clocks. introduced In 1955. Some experts believe that this can lead to a scenario similar to the Y2K problem, and that Bring Modern Civilization stop.
Atomic clocks count the release of atoms It was held in a vacuum room To calculate 24 hours in the clock with the highest level of sensitivity. When the resulting time we call UTC or coordinated universal time, which is based on 450 atom clock And it is global standard for time processing and all our phones and computers are determined.
It is an atomic clock in the time laboratory of Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) in Germany. These devices use lasers and atoms to calculate time with extreme precision. – Julian Stratenschultte/Picture Alliance/DPA/Getty Images
Astronomers, for example, follow the return of the Earth by using satellites that control the position of the planet by fixed stars, and can determine the minutes differences between the time of atomic clocks and the time to complete a complete rotation of the Earth. Last year, on July 5, 2024, Earth lived in 65 years ago since the emergence of atomic clock, the shortest day, less than 24 hours of less than 1.66 milliseconds lived.
“There is a tendency towards a slightly faster days since 1972, Dun said Duncan AGNEW, a professor of geophysicist in San Diego, San Diego, the Institute of Occupation of Scripp and the University of California. “But there are fluctuations. Like watching the stock market, really. There are long -term trends and then there are summits and falls.”
In 1972, after relatively slowing down for decades, the Earth had accumulated such a delay according to the atomic time in which the Spin, international world rotation and reference systems service required to add a “jump” to the UTC. This is similar to the jumping year that adds extra days every four years to take into account the inconsistency between the Gregorian calendar and the time required for the Earth to complete a orbit around the sun.
Total since 1972 27 jump seconds It has been added to the UTC, but due to the acceleration of the soil, the addition rate has gradually slowed down; In the 1970s, nine SEAP seconds were added, while a new jump second has not been added since 2016.
General Conference of Weights and Measures in 2022 (CGPM) voted To make a leap that splashes until 2035, that is, we cannot see another one added to the clocks. However, if the Earth continues to return for a few years faster, according to AGNEW, one second may need to be removed from the UTC. “There was never a negative jump,” he said, “but the probability of being one between now and 2035 is about 40%.”
What causes the world to rotate faster?
The shortest -term changes in the world’s rotation came from the Agnew, the Moon and the tides, which returned faster when it was slower and higher or lower than the satellite equator. This effect combines the fact that it naturally rotates faster during the summer – as a result of deceleration due to seasonal changes such as jet flow moving to the north or south of the atmosphere; The laws of physics determine that the general angular momentum and atmosphere of the Earth should remain constant, so the return rate lost by the atmosphere is taken by the planet itself. Similarly, for the last 50 years, the Earth’s liquid core has been slowing down, and the solid soil around it has been accelerating.
By looking at the combination of these effects, scientists can predict whether an approaching day is particularly short. “These fluctuations have short -term correlations, so if the world is accelerating in one day, the next day is a tendency to accelerate, a physicist and Judah Levine, a physicist and a physicist and a member of the Institute of National Standards and Technology. “However, this correlation disappears at longer and longer intervals. And when you come to a year, the estimation becomes quite uncertain. In fact, the international world rotation and reference systems service does not predict more than a year.”
The spin rate of the Earth is affected by many factors, but the moon and tides have traditionally played an important role. – NASA
Although it didn’t make a difference in a short day, Levine said that the last tendency of shorter days increased the likelihood of a negative leap. “When the second system of LEAP was defined in 1972, nobody really thought that the negative second would happen,” he said. “This was just something that was put in the standard because you had to do it for integrity.
Levine, a negative SCEAP expectation increases concerns because there are problems that continue with a positive leap after 50 years. “There are still places that do wrong or make the wrong time or make a misinterpretation or make false numbers. And this was done over and over again. With a positive jump.
Since many basic technology systems are based on clocks and function time such as telecommunications, financial transactions, electricity networks and GPS satellites, the emergence of the second negative leap, according to Levine, according to Levine, in a way that the day of courtesy is not thinking about a new thought, for a new thought, a new thought, a new thought. ’99’ to ’00 ‘.
ROLE OF ICE MELTING
Climate change is also a factor that contributes to the Leap seconds, but surprisingly. Although global warming has significant negative effects on the world, it served to resist the forces that accelerated the return of the Earth when it comes to time operation. A study published by AGNEW last year at The Journal Nature In Antarctica and Greenland, how the melting of the ice spread over the oceans, slowing down the return of the land – just like a skater who turns on their heads, but the arms are stuck along the body.
AGNEW said, “If this ice was not melted, if we hadn’t had a global warming, then we’d be experiencing a negative leap, or we’d be very close to having it,” said AGNEW. Melting from Greenland and Antarctica Ice Sheets has been responsible for one third of the global sea level since 1993. According to NASA.
Shoe appearance on Horseshoe Island in Antarctica. Melting ice here and in Greenland affects the speed of the world. – Sebnem Coskun/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
The mass shift of this melting ice is not only at the return speed of the Earth, but also rotation axisAccording to the research led by Benedict Soja, an assistant professor at the Civilian, Environment and Geomatic Engineering Department of the Swiss Federal Technology Institute in Switzerland, Switzerland. If heating persists, the effect may be dominant. “At the end of this century, the impact of climate change in a pessimistic scenario (people continue to spread more greenhouse gas) in a pessimistic scenario may exceed the effect of the moon, which really directs the rotation of the world for the last few billion years,” he said.
Currently, considering the uncertainty of long -term forecasts on Earth’s spinning behavior, it is useful to have more potentially time to prepare for the movement. “I think (faster spinning) is still within reasonable limits, so natural variability may be within reasonable limits. “Maybe we could see a different situation again in a few years, and we could see that the planet was slowing down again in the long run. This would be my intuition, but you never know.”
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