Context:
A recent study suggests that climate change-driven redistribution of water and ice may slightly affect Earth’s rotation and increase the length of a day. The study links sea-level change, melting ice sheets and mass redistribution with changes in Earth’s rotational speed.
- Earth’s rotation determines the length of a day, but it is not absolutely fixed because mass distribution on Earth keeps changing.
- When ice sheets melt and water shifts from land-based ice to oceans, Earth’s mass gets redistributed.
- This works like a spinning skater: when arms are extended outward, rotation slows; similarly, when Earth’s mass moves farther from the axis, rotation can slow slightly.
- Slower rotation means a very tiny increase in the length of day, measured in milliseconds or microseconds.
- Sea-level rise is caused by thermal expansion of oceans and melting of glaciers, Greenland ice sheet and Antarctic ice sheet.
- Earth’s rotation is also influenced by the Moon’s tidal forces, atmospheric circulation, ocean currents and processes deep inside Earth.
- Scientists use palaeoclimate records, fossils, geological evidence, climate models and deep-learning methods to study long-term sea-level changes.
- The issue shows how climate change affects not only oceans and ecosystems but also planetary-scale processes.
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Sea-Level Redistribution and Earth’s Rotational Shift