It has been found that the melting of polar ice sheets due to climate change causes the Earth to rotate more slowly.
In the study carried out at the University of California in San Diego, the effects of geophysical phenomena on the Earth’s rotation were analyzed using mathematical models.
The study concluded that melting polar ice, especially due to human-induced climate change, causes the Earth to rotate more slowly than in the past.
The study states that the Earth’s center of gravity is affected by the melting of ice at the poles and that this situation also causes the planet to rotate more slowly.
In the study, it is mentioned that this slowdown could lead to the postponement of the application of the “interim second”, in which 1 more second is added to the last minute of the calendar year and, in this context, the addition, which was scheduled for 2026, could be postponed for 2029.
Study author Duncan Agnew, a geophysicist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, said in a statement about his study that sea level change due to melting glaciers has reached a level where it can be verify that the Earth’s rotation speed is affected.
The results of the investigation were published in the journal “Nature”.
