00:03As 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
00:33change can have, even on a geological and cosmic level. So how does a warming planet slow it down?
00:38Well, Earth isn't exactly a sphere. It's what's called an oblate spheroid, meaning our planet has
00:43a bit of a belly bulging around the equator, and it changes constantly due to the moon's
00:47gravitational pull on either side. So more water floating around the equator means more mass there,
00:52with study co-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 us
01:06on a day-to-day basis. However, experts say it will prove an issue for space and Earth navigation
01:12moving forward.
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