Scientists have been baffled after discovering that the Earth is spinning faster than normal, making the days shorter than usual.
New measurements from the UK’s National Physical Laboratory show that the Earth is now spinning faster than half a century ago.
On June 29, the Earth’s complete rotation took 1.59 milliseconds less than 24 hours, the shortest day ever recorded.
Scientists have warned that if the rate of rotation continues to accelerate, we may have to take a second off our atomic clocks.
“If Earth’s rapid rotation continues, it could lead to the introduction of the first negative second leap,” astrophysicist Graham Jones reported via TimeandDate.com.
“This would be needed to keep civil time, which is based on the super constant rhythm of atomic clocks, in step with solar time, which is based on the movement of the Sun across the sky.
“A negative leap second would mean our clocks jump a second, which could create problems for computer systems.”
The Meta researchers said a second leap would have colossal effects on technology and become a “major source of pain” for hardware infrastructures.
“The impact of a second negative interleave has never been tested on a large scale; could have a devastating effect on software that relies on timers or schedulers,” stated a blog post on the topic, written by researchers Oleg Obleukhov and Ahmad Byagowi.
“Either way, every leap second is a huge source of pain for people who manage hardware infrastructure.”
Scientists Leonid Zotov, Christian Bizouard and Nikolay Sidorenkov claim that the irregular rotations are the result of something called the Chandler Wobble, an irregular movement of Earth’s geographic poles across the globe’s surface.
“The normal amplitude of the Chandler wobble is about 3 ma 4 ma at the Earth’s surface,” Zotov told timeanddate, “but from 2017 to 2020 it disappeared.”
Some experts believe that the melting and freezing of ice caps on the world’s highest mountains could be contributing to the erratic speed.
“Earth has recorded its shortest day since scientists began using atomic clocks to measure its rotation speed,” TimeandDate reported.
“On June 29, 2022, Earth completed one rotation in 1.59 milliseconds less than 24 hours. This is the latest in a series of speed records for Earth since 2020.”
Professor Zotov told timeanddate that there is a “70 percent chance” that the planet has already reached the minimum length of a day, meaning we will probably never need to use a negative leap second.
However, Zoltov admitted there’s still no way to know for sure with current technology.
The second negative effect and its possible consequences date back to the theories of the year 2000, where many believed that computers would not be able to cope with the clocks of the new millennium.
While 2000 proved to be nothing more than a simple hiccup in our heavily computerized civilization, another programming limitation was discovered in 2014.
The vast majority of computer servers use the same system that stores the date and time as a 32-bit integer that counts the number of seconds since January 1, 1970, often known as the epoch of age.
On March 19, 2038, at precisely 03:14:07 (Coordinated Universal Time), the clocks will reach the largest number representable by a 32-bit integer.
As things stand, it is very likely that many computers will not be able to tell the difference between the year 2038 and 1970.
However, by 2038, many 32-bit systems will likely have worn out or been replaced.
The infrastructure is likely to be the biggest headache to deal with, but planning the change far enough in advance should eliminate most of the major problems related to date and time issues on computers.
Originally published as Scientists baffled as Earth spins faster than usual, making days shorter