China News Service, Beijing, March 28 (Reporter Sun Zifa) The internationally renowned academic journal "Nature" published a climate change paper at 0:00 on March 28, Beijing time, pointing out that the increase in polar ice melt caused by global warming may affect global timing. . Melting ice in Greenland and Antarctica may be slowing Earth's angular velocity (the rate at which its angular position changes over time) faster than before. To do this, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) may need to add a negative "leap second" 3 years later than it originally was.
The paper introduces that many activities such as network computing and financial markets require UTC to provide a unified, standard and accurate time scale. However, because the rotation speed of the solid earth is not constant, UTC needs to be adjusted since it was defined in 1969 to ensure A time frame consistent with the Earth's rotation rate relative to the star. Since the angular velocity of the solid Earth is constantly slowing down, this adjustment requires adding a leap second at certain times.
The author of the paper, Duncan Carr Agnew of the University of California, San Diego, completed this research alone. He used mathematical models to study the impact of various changes in the Earth's angular momentum on global timing: The angular velocity of the Earth's liquid-dominated core has been increasing at a constant rate. Slowing down, this gradually increases the angular velocity of the solid Earth (to maintain angular momentum). This effect has resulted in the need to add only a few leap seconds in recent decades, and in the future, a negative leap second may be needed as early as 2026.
The authors of the paper also found that the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets measured by satellite gravity has increased in recent years, causing the angular velocity of the solid Earth to slow down faster than before. It predicted the angular velocity of the solid Earth by extrapolating this trend and estimated that UTC as defined today will not require negative leap seconds until 2029. He said this would cause problems with computer network timing and may require policy changes to coordinate UTC and the Earth's rotation earlier than originally planned.
The authors of the paper pointed out that if the melting of polar ice does not accelerate in recent years, then negative leap seconds will need to be added three years earlier. He concluded that the relationship between global warming and global timing is already inseparable, and the relationship may be even closer in the future. (over)