Climate change will lengthen our days. And disrupt spaceflight
You have probably heard many times that global warming is a threat to the Earth. Today, such slogans increasingly often cause an indifferent shrug of the shoulders, rather than real reflection and a change of habits. Meanwhile, scientists have revealed another, disturbing effect of climate change.
Two new studies suggest that human-induced global warming, which dates back to the 19th century’s Industrial Revolution, is having a profound effect on Earth, fundamentally changing elements of the planet’s physical properties. It’s slowing Earth’s spin, shifting its axis, and even affecting its inner core.
Somewhere it decreases, somewhere it increases
Another hackneyed slogan that works great here is the saying “nature abhors a vacuum”. If something is lost somewhere, then something has to change. And so, the melting ice at the poles leads to a lower concentration of water in these regions in favor of the center of the Earth. This in turn translates into a greater mass in the equatorial region, which in turn translates into a slower rotation around its own axis. But that’s not all. All these events also affect even the fluids moving in the molten core of our planet. The findings on this subject have just been published in two journals, Nature Geoscience and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Interestingly, in Earth’s history we also witnessed the opposite process, although it was also related to the melting of glaciers. However, during glaciations, frozen water gave way to the earth’s crust emerging at higher geographical altitudes, which was supposed to accelerate the planet’s rotation – indicates The Guardian.
What changed?
In order to perform the relevant analyses, it was necessary to develop a model covering 120 years of polar movement. On this occasion, it was discovered that changes in the distribution of mass on Earth caused by melting ice probably influenced the emergence of small fluctuations. According to scientists’ estimates, climate change influenced deviations at the level of 1 meter of change over 10 years.
Importantly, these discoveries affect not only our lives on Earth, but also the conduct of space missions. Space probes based on the precise position of the Earth in space may not reach their intended target if the original data is not adjusted to the current situation. This will be a big challenge, especially for objects traveling further. For example, a 1-meter deviation of the Earth’s axis can translate into a kilometer-long error in the case of the vicinity of Mars.
In the case of time changes, previous studies already indicate that climate change has delayed the need to add another so-called leap second, which allows for greater consistency of clocks with the Earth’s rotation.
