Has the Earth been spinning faster since midnight came earlier

There's a reason why you seem to have less time than ever lately: the revolution. This year's June 29 marked the shortest day on Earth since the 1960s when researchers began tracking the planet's rotation with accurate atomic clocks.

It takes the Earth 24 hours to complete one full rotation around its axis. There is only one spin in a day, which also powers dawn and sunset cycles that have shaped life patterns for billions of years. There was a 1.59-millisecond delay between midnight on June 29 and midnight on June 30.

Shorter days have been occurring more frequently over the last few years, leading to a flurry of records falling. A total of 28 of the shortest days of the previous 50 years occurred in 2020, with the shortest day occurring on July 19, shaving 1.47 milliseconds off the 24 hours' 86,400 seconds. The 29 June record came dangerously close to being shattered last month when the 26 July came in 1.5 milliseconds short.

Does the world seem to be getting faster? Geological timeframes condense the rise and fall of dinosaurs into a blink of an eye as the Earth spins more slowly than it used to. If we could turn the clock back 1.4 billion years. 

A day would last less than 19 hours. As a result, Earth days generally become longer by roughly one 74,000th of a second a year, not shorter. Earth's rotation is gradually slowed by the moon's gravitational pull, which warps the globe and causes tidal friction.

Since 2016, the International Telecommunication Union has been adding sporadic leap seconds to maintain clocks in sync with the planet's rotation. As a result, the clocks are stopped for a second so that the Earth can catch up. Leap seconds were introduced in 1972. The next opportunity is in December 2022; however, given how quickly the Earth rotates, it is unlikely to be needed.

Even though the Earth is slowing down over the long term, the situation is more chaotic in shorter periods. There is a molten core inside the Earth, and on its surface, there are moving continents, swelling oceans, and melting glaciers. As the planet spins, a dense layer of gases engulfs it. All of these factors affect how quickly or slowly the Earth rotates, even though they are intangible.

NASA has determined that stronger winds in El Nio years delay the planet's rotation and lengthen the day by a few hundredths of a millisecond. Earthquakes, on the other hand, may have the opposite effect. In 2004, the Indian Ocean tsunami caused an earthquake that moved enough rock to shorten the day by over three microseconds.

As an ice skater accelerates when they draw in their arms, anything that pushes mass towards the center of the Earth will accelerate its rotation. If material is pulled away from the center by geological activity, the rotation will reverse and slow.

A day's length is affected by several mechanisms, which scientists are currently trying to understand. If the trend toward shorter days continues, it may spur calls for the first 'negative leap second.'

Civil time would miss a second rather than add one to clocks to keep up with the faster-spinning globe. As a result, discussions about whether the concept of measuring time by the movement of the earth has outlived its usefulness after over 5,000 years may resurface.

source: natureworldnews