Evan Bush is a science reporter for NBC News. He can be reached at [email protected].
Global warming has slightly slowed the Earth’s rotation — and it could affect how we measure time. A study published Wednesday found that the melting of polar ice — an accelerating trend driven primarily by human-caused climate change — has caused the Earth to spin less quickly than it would otherwise.
Meanwhile, since the last Ice Age, the Earth’s crust has been uplifting in some regions as it responds to the removal of ice sheets’ weight. That effect shifts where mass is distributed and speeds up the planet’s spin. Both of those processes are fairly constant and have predictable rates. Yet another factor is the movement of fluid within the Earth’s liquid inner core — a wild card that can either speed or slow how fast the Earth rotates, Agnew said.
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