Climate change slows Earth's rotation, lengthening days

https://gizmodo.com/earths-spin-is-slowing-at-a-pace-not-seen-in-millions-of-years-and-you-can-guess-why-2000733332

14 points · 3 comments · view on lemmy.world

3 Comments

porcoesphino@mander.xyz · 6 pts · 153d (2 replies)

TLDR: Water melt accumulates at the equator so there is more mass further away from the centre of rotation

Lats@aus.social · 2 pts · 153d (1 reply)

@porcoesphino @Innerworld the headline would have been better “Rising oceans are slowing the Earths rotation - Climate Change!”. The interesting thing is that there is no real discussion about what the impact of slower rotation may be, apart from curiosity.
#sealevelrise #climatechange

maxy@piefed.social · 1 pts · 153d

I guess it's only what the article says - relevant for some space manoeuvres or precise measurements, and a curiosity otherwise.

In the long run days are getting longer anyway, as angular momentum keeps being transferred from earth to moon, which is slowly getting farther away. See Wikipedia Day - Variations in length and Moon - System evolution.