“This is an unprecedented situation and a big deal”
Earth will soon lose a second at some point because our planet is spinning faster.
Our planet is spinning at the fastest rate on record and the days are getting shorter, with scientists thinking we could lose a whole second from a normal day.
The Earth's rotation rate is gradually increasing, which means that it does not take 24 hours for the Earth to rotate once.
In the past, scientists sometimes had to add leap seconds into computers so that they would align with the Earth's rotation.
Since 1972, 27 leap seconds have been added to world clocks to keep systems such as computers and financial markets aligned with the Earth.
But as the Earth spins faster, a full second of time will soon have to be eliminated for the first time, scientists say.
This will cause the clock on the selected day to jump from 23.59.58 directly to midnight.
However, according to a new study, the increase in the Earth's rotation rate has been slightly slowed by the effects of global warming.
Experts say the need for negative leap seconds will come three years later than expected.
The study's lead author is geophysicist Duncan Agnew of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.
He said a negative leap second was “an unprecedented situation and a big deal” and showed that “we are in a very unusual period”.
“A huge change in the Earth's rotation is not going to cause a disaster or anything, but it's something worth noting,” Agnew said. “It's another sign that we're in a very unusual period.”
Explaining how global warming affects the Earth's rotation, Agnew told the Natural History Museum: “Imagine a skater spinning on ice. If they extend their arms, their spin will slow down, but if they put their arms down into the body, then they will accelerate.
This proves the conservation of angular momentum, a principle that applies to all rotating objects, including the Earth. “
He continued: “When polar ice melts, the water spreads across the oceans, causing the same effect as a skater spreading his arms – the Earth slows down. More rapid melting will cause the Earth to slow down faster, which is the same as The opposite acceleration has occurred in recent years.”
Because it's never been necessary to remove a second before, current software can only add time instead of subtracting it.
Experts need to start working together to determine the potential effects and risks of negative leap seconds, Patrizia Tavella of the BIPM's time department wrote in an accompanying article to the study.
“A negative leap second has never been added or tested, so the problems it could cause are unprecedented,” she wrote.
In the past, computers have had difficulty adding leap seconds, and some have called for leap seconds to not be added at all.
Some tech companies have started adding a fraction of a second to each day so clocks can stay correct without having to deal with leap seconds.
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