Something strange is happening to the planet, and it has nothing to do with temperature, storms, or sea level. It is something far more fundamental.
Scientists just confirmed that the real culprit is human-driven climate change, which is altering Earth in a way not seen in 3.6 million years.
The mechanism comes down to basic physics. Earth spins faster when mass concentrates toward its center, just like a figure skater who pulls in their arms to speed up. When that mass shifts outward, the planet slows. Right now, climate change is doing exactly that, on a global scale.
A new study published March 10 in the journal JGR Solid Earth pinpointed the cause. Researchers from ETH Zurich traced Earth’s rotation rate back millions of years using fossils of foraminifera, tiny shelled organisms. Because their oxygen content reveals ancient sea levels, the team used them to reconstruct how fast Earth once spun. What they found was alarming.
Today’s rate of change ranks among the fastest in 3.6 billion years of planetary history. The only comparable episode occurred around 2 million years ago, when carbon dioxide and temperatures also rose sharply. Even so, historical uncertainty means today’s rate could already match or exceed that ancient event.
Several forces already compete to influence Earth’s spin. The moon’s gravitational pull adds about 2.4 milliseconds to the length of a day every century, while glacial rebound of the crust partially cancels that out.
Shahvandi and study co-author Benedikt Soja, a professor of space geodesy at ETH Zurich, believe this new, third force effect will get even bigger and larger than that of the moon.
“[It] tells us about the rapid climate change,” Shahvandi said, “[the] melting of snow and ice in polar ice sheets and mountains glaciers, and increase in the sea levels.”
The numbers seem small, but their consequences are not. Under a high-emissions scenario, the effect could nearly double by 2080. Spacecraft navigation, GPS systems, and precision computing all depend on knowing Earth’s exact rotation rate. Because any uncorrected drift compounds over time, even milliseconds eventually translate into real errors with real consequences.
You can access the research paper here.
