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Earth's rotation is slowing down, days are getting longer: Consequences for clocks, GPS and satellites

2026-05-30 19:31:12Lifestyle SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
Melting glaciers are slowing the Earth's rotation

Days on Earth are getting longer, although the change is almost imperceptible to humans. A new study shows that the planet's rotation is slowing down, gradually adding milliseconds to the length of the day.

According to a study published in the scientific journal Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, the length of the day has increased by about 1.33 milliseconds per century over the last two decades.

The main cause is related to the melting of glaciers in the Arctic, Greenland and Antarctica. As global temperatures rise, the ice melts and water is distributed from the poles to the oceans, changing the distribution of the Earth's mass and the rate of its rotation.

To put it simply, scientists compare the phenomenon to a figure skater spinning. When she brings her arms closer to her body, she spins faster. When her weight is distributed further away from the center, the motion slows down.

"If the mass is further away from the axis of rotation, then the rotation slows down," said study co-author, geoscientist Benedikt Soja of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich).

"We think that the day is always the same length, but accurate measurements show that this is not the case," he added.

According to researchers, the process will not change the 24-hour day anytime soon, as it takes millions of years for the change to become noticeable. However, the current pace of slowdown is considered unprecedented in the last 3.6 million years.

To reach this conclusion, scientists analyzed the chemical composition of fossils of ancient marine organisms, which formed shells from chemical substances in seawater.

Changes in these "chemical traces" helped researchers reconstruct sea level changes and, consequently, the length of days millions of years ago.

Although a millisecond difference may seem insignificant, it can create real problems for modern technologies, such as GPS systems, navigation apps, and satellites, which depend on extremely precise measurements of the Earth's rotation.

"We can slow this trend, but we cannot currently reverse it," Soja said, warning that climate change could bring even greater impacts by the end of the century.


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