Such a short day has never been measured since rotational speed measurements began in 1960. June 29 was noisy Timeanddate.com 1.59 milliseconds less than 24 hours. A series of short days has been recorded since 2020 and this trend could lead to the introduction of a negative leap second, so ABC News. As the days get shorter and shorter, this would be necessary to keep our weather in sync with the Earth’s rotation.

Multiple implications for IT

Until now there was only positive leap seconds, since the Earth tended to rotate more slowly. These had serious implications for IT and various websites and cloud providers failed. However, Michael Wouters of Australia’s National Measurement Institute told ABC News that a negative leap second would not be as difficult as a positive one.

The problem is that the programming assumes that time is always moving forward. However, if you add a leap second, you’re essentially going back in time, which causes problems. If you take away a second, you jump in time, which makes more sense for programming since time always moves forward. If the technology isn’t very old, Wauters says there shouldn’t be a breakdown.

Because the difference between astronomical time – that is, the rotation of the earth – and our time is still so small, according to Wauters, an international committee recommends waiting until you can do ten leap seconds at the same time. Then, according to him, it would not be necessary for at least the next 100 years.

Why the earth spins faster is unclear. According to Matt King of the University of Tasmania, the climate change cause. Melting ice and resulting changes in ocean currents would affect Earth’s rotation. However, according to King, it is not known if this phenomenon is responsible for the current record measurements.