{"id":12003,"date":"2024-04-02T17:08:19","date_gmt":"2024-04-02T15:08:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vsl.nl\/?p=12003"},"modified":"2025-08-29T10:28:30","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T08:28:30","slug":"climate-change-changes-how-we-tell-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vsl.nl\/en\/news\/climate-change-changes-how-we-tell-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate change changes how we tell time"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_section full_width=”stretch_row” content_placement=”middle” css=”.vc_custom_1711701536271{background-image: url(https:\/\/www.vsl.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/VSL_labs-83-scaled.jpg?id=12007) !important;background-position: center !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;background-size: cover !important;}” el_class=”main_header gradient_header dg-position-realtive”][vc_row equal_height=”yes” content_placement=”middle” el_class=”dg-header–small”][vc_column width=”5\/6″ el_class=”dg-padding-none full_width_responsive”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1756456109289{margin-bottom: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}” el_class=”text-white”]Published on April 2nd 2024<\/ins><\/p>\n

Climate change changes how we tell time<\/h1>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/6″][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][\/vc_section][vc_section el_class=”dg-padding-mid”][vc_row equal_height=”yes” content_placement=”top”][vc_column el_class=”full_width_responsive dg-padding-none”][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

News<\/p>\n

Climate change changes how we tell time<\/h2>\n

[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]A recent publication in Nature<\/a> shows that climate change is slowing the acceleration of Earth’s rotation. This impacts numerous issues, including metrology. Namely, it reduces the need to make corrections to global time measurements.[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]As the ice caps melt, more melt water moves toward the equator, which slows the rotation a tiny bit. That in turn affects the length of a day and thus the precision of universal time (UTC), which is maintained based on atomic clocks.[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]We already relatively often add a leap second to a day to keep clocks in sync with the earth’s rotation; soon, however, a “negative leap second” would be required.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]Experts previously predicted that this might need to happen in 2025 or 2026. However, due to deceleration caused by climate change, this moment will be delayed until possibly 2029.[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]While climate change is not good news, this postponement has a silver lining: it also postpones the technical and operational challenges associated with adapting world time, and with it, risks to computer system synchronisation, for example.[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Want to know more about the impact of climate change on metrology? Erik Dierikx, VSL expert in time and electricity, recently shared his insights in de Volkskrant<\/a> as well as on EditieNL (both in Dutch)![\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][\/vc_section]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A recent publication in Nature shows that climate change is slowing the acceleration of Earth’s rotation. 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