Did You Know That Climate Change is Actually Making the Days on Earth Last Longer?

Amaze Lab

As the planet warms and the polar ice caps melt our world wil experience some extreme and potentially life altering changes. We’ve all heard that the sea levels will rise, and the oceans will acidify, among other issues, but now experts say our days might actually get longer as well.

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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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