Overview
- The 2000–2020 trend lengthens the day by about 1.33 milliseconds per century, which the authors attribute primarily to human activity.
- The peer-reviewed study in Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth comes from ETH Zurich and the University of Vienna.
- Scientists reconstructed day-length variability back 3.6 million years using benthic foraminifera proxies combined with a physics-informed deep-learning model.
- Only an interval roughly 2 million years ago approached today’s rate, yet it remained slower than the modern increase.
- Even millisecond shifts can affect precision navigation and timekeeping, and the team projects climate-driven effects may surpass the Moon’s influence by late century.