The Earth completed a recent rotation in quicker time than ever before, and the consequences for how we keep time have scientists alarmed.
Earth recorded its shortest day on record on June 29, completing one rotation in 1.59 millisecond under 24 hours.
Scientists aren’t exactly sure what is causing the slightly faster rotation, but speculate it could be linked to climate change, tides, or even the Earth’s layers.
Irregular rotations create the need for something known as a leap second, a second added to the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) that keeps our clocks as close to solar time - the movements of the sun - as possible.
So far, Earth’s rotation has been largely slowing over time, so only positive leap seconds have been added to atomic clocks to keep up, but it was just revealed that on June 29, the Earths’ rotation was recorded spinning faster than normal.
“If Earth’s fast rotation continues, it could lead to the introduction of the first-ever negative leap second,” a story published on the timeanddate website warned.
A negative leap second is a second taken away from atomic clocks.
“This would be required to keep civil time—which is based on the super-steady beat of atomic clocks—in step with solar time, which is based on the movement of the Sun across the sky.
“A negative leap second would mean that our clocks skip one second, which could potentially create problems for IT systems,” the timeanddate story said.
Meta said in a blog post late last month a negative leap second could have a “devastating effect”.
That’s in part because some technological systems have a baked-in assumption that time only moves forward.
These IT systems are likely to suffer massive outages if their internal clocks ever need to move backwards to compensate for an irregularly fast rotation of the Earth.
Earth recorded its shortest day on Friday, but the effect of correcting clocks to compensate could have a ‘devastating effect’ on IT systems.
“The impact of a negative leap second has never been tested on a large scale; it could have a devastating effect on the software relying on timers or schedulers,” Meta said.
Meta said the UTC had been altered 27 times already with positive leap seconds, and also argues this is more than enough to last the millennium - calling for an end to adding leap seconds.
“Introducing new leap seconds is a risky practice that does more harm than good, and we believe it is time to introduce new technologies to replace it,” the post said.
In 2012, Reddit was inaccessible for up to 40 minutes after an outage caused by a leap second which confused the system’s timer.
“The leap second and the offset it creates cause issues all over the industry,” Meta wrote.
Why does it happen?
A group of scientists - Leonid Zotov, Christian Bizouard and Nikolay Sidorenkov - believe the irregular rotations are caused by something called the Chandler Wobble.
They will be speaking at this week’s annual Asia Oceania Geosciences Society meeting to suggest this theory.
The Chandler wobble describes an irregular movement of Earth’s geographical poles across the surface of the globe, according to timeanddate.
“The normal amplitude of the Chandler wobble is about 3m to 4m at Earth’s surface,” Zotov told timeanddate, “but from 2017 to 2020 it disappeared.”
The melting and refreezing of ice caps on the world’s tallest mountains could be contributing, and the phenomenon can be visualised by imagining a spinning figure skater slowing down when their arms are outstretched and speeding up as their arms are tucked in.
Friday’s record-breaking time is just one of several speed records set for Earth since 2020.
The Earth is, over long periods of time, actually slowing down - it takes a couple of milliseconds longer to complete its rotation each century.
Zotov told timeanddate that there’s a “70 per cent chance” we’re already at the minimum length of a day and won’t need to introduce a negative leap second, but nobody knows for sure.
The Earth just recorded its shortest day on record - and the effects could be ‘devastating’ | 7NEWS
Earth recorded its shortest day on record on June 29, completing one rotation in 1.59 millisecond under 24 hours.
Scientists aren’t exactly sure what is causing the slightly faster rotation, but speculate it could be linked to climate change, tides, or even the Earth’s layers.
Irregular rotations create the need for something known as a leap second, a second added to the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) that keeps our clocks as close to solar time - the movements of the sun - as possible.
So far, Earth’s rotation has been largely slowing over time, so only positive leap seconds have been added to atomic clocks to keep up, but it was just revealed that on June 29, the Earths’ rotation was recorded spinning faster than normal.
“If Earth’s fast rotation continues, it could lead to the introduction of the first-ever negative leap second,” a story published on the timeanddate website warned.
A negative leap second is a second taken away from atomic clocks.
“This would be required to keep civil time—which is based on the super-steady beat of atomic clocks—in step with solar time, which is based on the movement of the Sun across the sky.
“A negative leap second would mean that our clocks skip one second, which could potentially create problems for IT systems,” the timeanddate story said.
Meta said in a blog post late last month a negative leap second could have a “devastating effect”.
That’s in part because some technological systems have a baked-in assumption that time only moves forward.
These IT systems are likely to suffer massive outages if their internal clocks ever need to move backwards to compensate for an irregularly fast rotation of the Earth.
Earth recorded its shortest day on Friday, but the effect of correcting clocks to compensate could have a ‘devastating effect’ on IT systems.
“The impact of a negative leap second has never been tested on a large scale; it could have a devastating effect on the software relying on timers or schedulers,” Meta said.
Meta said the UTC had been altered 27 times already with positive leap seconds, and also argues this is more than enough to last the millennium - calling for an end to adding leap seconds.
“Introducing new leap seconds is a risky practice that does more harm than good, and we believe it is time to introduce new technologies to replace it,” the post said.
In 2012, Reddit was inaccessible for up to 40 minutes after an outage caused by a leap second which confused the system’s timer.
“The leap second and the offset it creates cause issues all over the industry,” Meta wrote.
Why does it happen?
A group of scientists - Leonid Zotov, Christian Bizouard and Nikolay Sidorenkov - believe the irregular rotations are caused by something called the Chandler Wobble.
They will be speaking at this week’s annual Asia Oceania Geosciences Society meeting to suggest this theory.
The Chandler wobble describes an irregular movement of Earth’s geographical poles across the surface of the globe, according to timeanddate.
“The normal amplitude of the Chandler wobble is about 3m to 4m at Earth’s surface,” Zotov told timeanddate, “but from 2017 to 2020 it disappeared.”
The melting and refreezing of ice caps on the world’s tallest mountains could be contributing, and the phenomenon can be visualised by imagining a spinning figure skater slowing down when their arms are outstretched and speeding up as their arms are tucked in.
Friday’s record-breaking time is just one of several speed records set for Earth since 2020.
The Earth is, over long periods of time, actually slowing down - it takes a couple of milliseconds longer to complete its rotation each century.
Zotov told timeanddate that there’s a “70 per cent chance” we’re already at the minimum length of a day and won’t need to introduce a negative leap second, but nobody knows for sure.
The Earth just recorded its shortest day on record - and the effects could be ‘devastating’ | 7NEWS
