{"id":2000105421,"date":"2026-03-14T16:55:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T14:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/?p=2000105421"},"modified":"2026-03-14T12:41:49","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T10:41:49","slug":"scientists-say-climate-change-is-making-earths-days-longer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/scientists-say-climate-change-is-making-earths-days-longer\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists say climate change is making earth\u2019s days longer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Earth\u2019s day is not always exactly 24 hours. It changes naturally because of the moon\u2019s pull and processes inside the planet. But recent climate change adds a new factor. As ice melts, water moves from land to oceans, shifting Earth\u2019s mass. This slows rotation, like a figure skater spinning more slowly when stretching their arms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To study how unusual this is, researchers looked at tiny marine fossils called benthic foraminifera. The chemical makeup of these fossils shows old sea levels. Using this data and a special computer model, scientists could estimate how day length changed over millions of years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During past ice ages, growing and melting ice sheets changed day length, but none as fast as today. Only around 2 million years ago was the change somewhat similar, but still slower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This shows that today\u2019s climate change is faster than anything in the last 3.6 million years, according to said Benedikt Soja of ETH Zurich. By the end of this century, human-driven climate change could affect day length even more than the moon does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though the change is only a few milliseconds, it can affect precise tasks like space travel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Scientists from the University of Vienna and ETH Zurich say climate change is slowing Earth\u2019s spin, making our days slightly longer. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scientists from the University of Vienna and ETH Zurich say climate change is slowing Earth\u2019s spin, making our days slightly longer. Rising sea levels from melting ice sheets and glaciers are causing this change at a rate of 1.33 milliseconds per century, the fastest in the last 3.6 million years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000105426,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,1],"tags":[151,69],"byline":[160],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-2000105421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environment","category-uncategorized","tag-editors-choice","tag-homehighlights","byline-theophile-niyitegeka"],"bylines":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"contributors":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"featured_image":{"id":2000105426,"url":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/sc.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":1600,"height":900,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/sc.jpg","width":150,"height":84},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/sc.jpg","width":300,"height":169},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/sc.jpg","width":768,"height":432},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/sc.jpg","width":1024,"height":576},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/sc.jpg","width":1600,"height":900}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000105421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2000105421"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000105421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2000105427,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000105421\/revisions\/2000105427"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000105426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2000105421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2000105421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2000105421"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=2000105421"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=2000105421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}