A new study published this week caused multiple papers to run headlines along these lines: Climate change is altering Earth’s rotation enough to mess with our clocks.
That particularly egregious example is from the Washington Post, but CNN, the New York Times the BBC and many others went the same way with it. It’s pathetic clickbait nonsense.
The truth is that micro-alterations in the speed of the Earth’s rotation mean we add and remove so-called “leap seconds” every few years. They have added 27 seconds in this fashion in the last 45 years- that’s it!
This study published in Nature claims this potential change might possibly be caused by melting ice caps which are allegedly due to climate change which is theoretically anthropogenic.
So while the papers report “climate change is altering our time”, the more accurate headline would be “our time is altering less than we expected, and one guy thinks maybe it’s because of climate change.”
But I guess that’s not a catchy title.
The Nature study, A global timekeeping problem postponed by global warming, goes on to say that is that minor changes in Earth’s rotation speed have led to the addition of “leap seconds” over the past 45 years, with 27 seconds added so far. The next leap second was expected in 2026 but may be delayed until 2029 due to new calculations.
