A new study has shown that the length of the day on Earth is gradually increasing - and the main reason for this may be human activity, BBC Sky at Night reports. Scientists estimate that due to global warming and melting glaciers, the day is lengthening by about 1.33 milliseconds per century.
The work was carried out by scientists from the University of Vienna and the Federal Higher Technical School of Zurich. They concluded that the redistribution of the planet's mass - in particular, the movement of water from the polar regions to the equator - slows down the rotation of the Earth. The analogy is explained simply: It's like a figure skater who spreads his arms out to the sides and starts spinning more slowly.
As part of the study, the scientists analyzed the fossils of foraminifera, microscopic marine organisms that have existed for hundreds of millions of years. Their shells retain chemical traces of changes in ocean level, which makes it possible to reproduce the climatic processes of the past. Based on these data and a special deep learning algorithm, the researchers were able to estimate the changes in the length of the day over the past almost 4 million years.
According to climatologist Mostaf Kiani Shahwandiya, the analysis of the chemical composition of these organisms makes it possible to determine fluctuations in sea level, and from them to calculate changes in the speed of rotation of the planet. To improve accuracy, the team also applied a new machine learning model that takes into account the physics of climate change even with incomplete data.
Although 1.33 milliseconds seem insignificant against the background of 86,400 seconds in a day, even such changes can affect the accuracy of satellite navigation and telecommunications – due to such a time difference, NASA plans to establish a separate time zone on the Moon. korrespondent.net.
Moreover, some models predict an acceleration of this process - up to 2.62 milliseconds per century by the end of the 21st century. In this case, the influence of climate can exceed even the gravitational effect of the Moon, which traditionally determines the change in the length of the day.
