Climate Change Slows Earth’s Spin, Scientists Warn

Climate change is slowing Earth’s rotation at a rate unseen in 3.6 million years, scientists report.

New research from the University of Vienna and ETH Zurich reveals that melting polar ice and glaciers are redistributing mass toward the equator-similar to a figure skater extending their arms. This shifts Earth’s rotational speed.

Using fossilized benthic foraminifera, researchers reconstructed ancient sea levels and day-length changes. Between 2000 and 2020, days lengthened by 1.33 milliseconds per century-a pace unmatched in the last 3.6 million years.

Scientists attribute this acceleration to human activity. By 2100, climate change could extend each day by up to 2.62 milliseconds.

Though imperceptible to humans, these shifts threaten precision-dependent technologies like GPS and space navigation, which rely on atomic time standards.