Scientists discovered how the Earth affects the length of the day – Science and IT
It turned out that the movement of hot matter in the core is capable of changing the duration of a day by 3-4 milliseconds in the millennial perspective, and in the scale of decades – by 2-3 milliseconds.
A day on Earth is traditionally considered to be fixed and lasts 24 hours, but in reality its duration varies over tens, hundreds and even thousands of years. Using modern technologies, including neural networks, scientists from the Swiss Higher Technical School of Zurich found out what factors influence these changes.
Their study covered the period from 720 BC to 2020 and identified several key factors that change the speed of the planet's rotation, reports Geophysical Research Letters.
Climate change was previously thought to play a major role in changing the length of the day, but new evidence suggests that its impact is much smaller than previously thought.
