It seems that there is nothing more stable than the rotation and rotation of the Earth. In fact, it turns out to be quite the opposite. Our planet rotates on its axis at a variable speed (although these changes occur very slowly and over different time periods). How can humanity measure time if the Earth itself is not the most reliable standard for measuring 24 hours?
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Atomic clocks help us with this. These are time scales that depend on the frequency of light emitted by atoms. They have been used since the 1960s and have become the basis for physicists and metrologists. They are atomic clocks that measure time so that we can distinguish time zones (UTC) and indicate with great accuracy what time it should be in each.
With the advent of atomic clocks, the concept of the leap second also emerged. This is an extra second we add to align UTC with solar time. This is because in the 1950s, the length of the day was being reduced, so sometimes it is necessary to add 61 seconds every few years. The last time a leap second (37) was added was on December 31, 2016. It was supposed to happen again in 2026, but meteorologists initially pushed that date back to 2029. Why?
The Earth rotates more slowly due to global warming
According to University of California San Diego researcher Duncan Carr Agnew, the Earth has begun to slow down its rotation rate due to the melting of glaciers in the North and South Poles. Increasing fresh water supplies and rising ocean levels turn out to be so significant that they affect the rotation of the Blue Planet. We can learn more about the case from Scientific material I press release Th nature.
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The scientist states that the Earth in recent decades has been rotating at a slightly higher speed than it was in previous centuries, and the reason for this is the periodic movements of the liquid mass of rocks in the outer core. This explains why leap seconds have been added every year or two since the 1970s.
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However, the acceleration has been decreasing since the early 1990s, and this is confirmed by climate data. The melting of the ice caps in the Arctic and Antarctica makes the Earth flat at the poles. Water masses move towards the equator. The situation can be compared to an ice skater going around a spin – when he puts his arms out to the side, he slows down, but when he raises his arms together, he speeds up. This first scenario happens to Earth. It is true that our planet is far from the appearance of Jupiter or Saturn, which have the shape of a flat ball due to their exceptionally high speed of rotation, but for humanity on Earth, even a small change in time by one second can cause a lot of problems.
A leap second brings nothing but trouble, but to whom?
First of all, we are talking about technical problems. For many computer systems, every leap second means the program code changes and “sets” to the new time. For the average citizen, this change is almost imperceptible, but from the point of view of advanced technologies, it can be a great difficulty. Therefore also the International Bureau of Weights and Measures Announce Recently, those leap seconds will no longer be used. But this will only happen in 2035.
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By then, we may be entering a single leap second, as I mentioned earlier, in 2029. This will most likely be the first negative second in history! Two-sixths of a minute would then be subtracted to coordinate the hours with the Earth's actual rotation. Seconds have never been introduced before and this would likely set a precedent.
For computer systems, a negative leap second is likely to be worse than a positive second, because it has not been built into any codes yet, explains Elizabeth Donnelly of the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado (USA), citing nature.
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The American researcher's research shows us not only the phenomenon of adding or subtracting a leap second, but also what its connections are to contemporary changes in ecosystems on Earth. Global warming may affect things like time measurement. It is now no longer possible to deny the impact of climate change on almost every aspect of life.
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