(Web Desk) - Days are becoming longer because of the climate crisis, a new analysis has suggested.
This has happened due to the mass melting of polar ice, which is reshaping the planet. Scientists have said that the phenomenon is a striking demonstration of how humanity's actions are transforming the Earth and even affecting its rotation speed and axis.
The Moon's gravitational pull and internal processes in the core and mantle were the main forces governing these motions.
However, the melting of ice sheets is currently interfering with these natural processes.
The latest paper published on Jul 15 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) shows that water flowing from Greenland and Antarctica is resulting in more mass around the equator.
According to the study, which was also published in Nature Geoscience on July 12, the underlying mechanics of the planet and climate change are causing Earth's spin axis to "shift".
The movement of the Earth's rotating axis with respect to the crust is known as polar motion. In the latest study, researchers at ETH Zurich have improved their basic understanding of the same by using state-of-the-art AI models.
They found that if greenhouse gas emissions keep rising, they will eventually become more powerful than the Moon's tidal force. The Moon has been regulating the constant lengthening of days for billions of years.
"We humans have a greater impact on our planet than we realize. And this naturally places great responsibility on us for the future of our planet," said Benedikt Soja, Professor of Space Geodesy at the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering at ETH Zurich.
Notably, the difference in the day's duration is only a few milliseconds, but it has the potential to interfere with GPS navigation, financial transactions and internet traffic—all of which depend on accurate timekeeping, Surendra Adhikari, who is the co-author of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory told news agency AFP.
"It's like when a figure skater does a pirouette, first holding her arms close to her body and then stretching them out," added Soja.
"The initially fast rotation becomes slower because the masses move away from the axis of rotation, increasing physical inertia," Soja said, further adding that Earth is commonly thought of as a sphere, but it's more accurate to call it an "oblate spheroid" that bulges somewhat around the equator, a bit like a satsuma.
"Ongoing climate change could therefore even be affecting processes deep inside the Earth and have a greater reach than previously assumed," added Kiani Shahvandi, lead author of the study and doctoral student, in the press release.