The International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service at the Paris
Obervatory reported that on June 29, Earth set a new record for the shortest
day of the atomic-clock era: -1.59 milliseconds.
If Earth’s fast rotation continues, it could lead to the introduction of the first-ever negative leap second.
Story at timeanddate.com here :-
https://www.timeanddate.com/news/ast...rtest-day-2022
Chart here at the Paris Observatoire :-
https://hpiers.obspm.fr/eop-pc/index.php
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Graham Jones and Konstantin Bikos. Published 27-Jul-2022, timeanddate.com
Why Is This Happening?
What is causing the current downward trend in the length of the shortest day?
It could be related to processes in Earth’s inner or outer layers, oceans, tides, or even climate. Scientists are not sure, and struggle to make predictions about the length of day more than a year ahead. But there are tentative ideas.
At next week’s annual meeting of the Asia Oceania Geosciences Society (presentation SE05_A009), Leonid Zotov—together with his colleagues Christian Bizouard and Nikolay Sidorenkov—will suggest the current decrease in the length of day could have some relation to the ‘Chandler wobble’.
Chandler wobble is the name given to a small, irregular movement of Earth’s geographical poles across the surface of the globe.
“The normal amplitude of the Chandler wobble is about three to four meters at Earth’s surface,” Dr Zotov told timeanddate, “but from 2017 to 2020 it disappeared.”
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