Earth’s changing spin is threatening to toy with our sense of time, clocks and computerized society in an unprecedented way — but only for a second.For the first time in history, world timekeepers may have to consider subtracting a second from our clocks in a few years because the planet is rotating a tad faster than it used to. Clocks may have to skip a second — called a “negative leap second” — around 2029, a study in the journal Nature said Wednesday.“This is an unprecedented situation and a big deal,” said study lead author Duncan Agnew, a geophysicist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. “It’s not a huge change in the Earth’s rotation that’s going to lead to some catastrophe or anything, but it is something notable. It’s yet another indication that we’re in a very unusual time.”Ice melting at both of Earth’s poles has been counteracting the planet’s burst of speed and is likely to have delayed this global second of reckoning by about three years, Agnew said.“We are headed toward a negative leap second,” said Dennis McCarthy, retired director of time for the U.S. Naval Observatory who wasn’t part of the study. “It’s a matter of when.”It’s a complicated situation that involves, physics, global power politics, climate change, technology and two types of time.Earth takes about 24 hours to rotate, but the key word is about.For thousands of years, the Earth has been generally slowing down, with the rate varying from time to time, said Agnew and Judah Levine, …
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[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnEarth’s changing spin is threatening to toy with our sense of time, clocks and computerized society in an unprecedented way — but only for a second.For the first time in history, world timekeepers may have to consider subtracting a second from our clocks in a few years because the planet is rotating a tad faster than it used to. Clocks may have to skip a second — called a “negative leap second” — around 2029, a study in the journal Nature said Wednesday.“This is an unprecedented situation and a big deal,” said study lead author Duncan Agnew, a geophysicist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. “It’s not a huge change in the Earth’s rotation that’s going to lead to some catastrophe or anything, but it is something notable. It’s yet another indication that we’re in a very unusual time.”Ice melting at both of Earth’s poles has been counteracting the planet’s burst of speed and is likely to have delayed this global second of reckoning by about three years, Agnew said.“We are headed toward a negative leap second,” said Dennis McCarthy, retired director of time for the U.S. Naval Observatory who wasn’t part of the study. “It’s a matter of when.”It’s a complicated situation that involves, physics, global power politics, climate change, technology and two types of time.Earth takes about 24 hours to rotate, but the key word is about.For thousands of years, the Earth has been generally slowing down, with the rate varying from time to time, said Agnew and Judah Levine, …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
