00:00As the planet warms and the polar ice caps melt, our world will experience some extreme
00:08and potentially life-altering changes. We've all heard that the sea levels will rise and the
00:12oceans will acidify, among other issues. But now experts say our days might actually get longer
00:18as well. According to a recent joint report from myriad agencies around the globe, if the worst
00:23case climate scenarios occur, our days could lengthen by 2.2 milliseconds by the year 2100.
00:29Okay, so that's not that much. But it does show just what incredibly drastic effects climate change
00:33can have, even on a geological and cosmic level. So how does a warming planet slow it down? Well,
00:38Earth isn't exactly a sphere. It's what's called an oblate spheroid, meaning our planet has a bit
00:43of a belly bulging around the equator. And it changes constantly due to the moon's gravitational pull
00:48on either side. So more water floating around the equator means more mass there. With study
00:53co-author Surendra Adhikari of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory saying about it,
00:57it's like when a figure skater does a pirouette, first holding her arms close to her body and
01:02then stretching them out. The increased inertia at our planet's belly won't mean much for
01:05us on a day-to-day basis. However, experts say it will prove an issue for space and Earth
01:11navigation moving forward.
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