The way melting polar ice is impacting global timekeeping systems is the focus of important new research. According to a report in the Financial Times, scientists have found that the massive amounts of ice disappearing daily from Greenland and Antarctica is redistributing water masses in a way that is slowing down the Earth’s rotation.
This has significance because Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), the international atomic time standard all official clocks are set by, is defined based on the stability of our planet’s rotation. When the rotation becomes irregular, UTC administrators must occasionally add “leap seconds” to keep clocks in sync with astronomical time. The last added second was on December 31st, 2016.
Quoted experts estimate another leap second will likely be needed by 2030 due to the ongoing melting of polar ice sheets and glaciers. Thousands of tons of ice are lost from these regions each day, removing weight that previously counterbalanced other areas of the planet. As a result, the Earth has been found to be rotating more slowly over time.
The research underscores the all-encompassing impacts of climate change. Beyond rising sea levels and environmental changes, melting ice is now shown to be altering the dynamics of the Earth’s rotation itself. This has implications for the long-term maintenance of timekeeping systems crucial for technologies like GPS. It demonstrates another way our climate and infrastructure are interconnected, and how ice loss impacts areas one may not immediately associate with climate change. For timekeepers, the findings suggest careful monitoring will be needed to keep clocks accurate in pace with the changing Earth.
Photo by Bernd 📷 Dittrich
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