Wednesday, March 27, 2024, 9:00 p.m.
The increasing polar melting as a consequence of climate change is already affecting the rate at which the Earth rotates. Specifically, according to a study published in the journal Nature, it rotates more slowly as a result of higher temperatures and, therefore, polar melting in Greenland and Antarctica. And the water ends up in the Ocean, raising sea level, which is equivalent to a transfer of mass from the poles to the equator. This slows down the speed of the Earth and, therefore, how time is configured on a universal scale, and could cause, if this affects the organization, problems in the coordination of computer systems.
It is a behavior that is not a simple study but warns that it can affect the coordination of world time. That this is happening, is reflected in the study signed by University of California researcher Duncan Carr Agnew, affects the day-to-day organization of the planet. And for any system to work in the world, whether it is the Internet, mobile phones or the economy itself, a precise time scale is needed. This is what provides Coordinated Universal Time and on which all other areas of the world are calculated.
According to the study, since 1972, all UTC discontinuities have required the addition of a leap second, that is, a specific minute becomes 61 seconds and not 60. But with the data on the table, the researcher affirms that UTC will require a negative discontinuity for 2029, and not for 2026 as was planned, “which will pose “an unprecedented problem for the synchronization of computer networks.”
Be that as it may, the slowdown in the Earth's rotation caused by melting ice and changes in the movement of its core has delayed the moment of making the decision whether or not it is necessary to include a negative leap second. And although he extends the period to make a decision, the researcher does not see the slowdown as something positive and warns of the changes that human beings are making with their activity on Earth.
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