The year 2020 will be remembered for many things, most unpleasant, but it will also be remembered because it was one of the fastest recorded, due to the accelerated rotation of our planet. If this trend continues, it could result in an unprecedented “negative second jump”.
Our clocks do not synchronize, but instead of running slowly, as they usually do, they start running a little faster. The reason for this is related to the surprising number of short days lived last year, the result of accelerating the rotation of our planet so little bit. As time and date rEPORTS, 2020 had the shortest 28 days since 1960.
The earth takes 24 hours, or 86,400 seconds, to make a complete rotation around its axis, which scientists refer to as an average solar day. However, the term “average” is essential, as there are small variations every day. This became evident in the 1960s, with the development of atomic timing. Atomic clocks measure the rotation of the Earth relative to a distant astronomical object, usually a fixed star. Scientists have learned that the length of a single day can deviate by a few milliseconds (ms), in which 1 ms is equal to 0.001 seconds.
The variability in the rotation of our planet is nothing to worry about and you certainly should not hold on to the couch, for fear of being thrown into space-bar. The variability of the Earth’s rotational speed is a normal phenomenon and is influenced by factors such as the internal sloshing of the molten core of our planet, oceans, winds and atmospheric pressure.
TBe clear, we are talking about very small numbers. Today, for example, is expected to last 24 hours, 0 minutes and 0.0792 ms, while yesterday it lasted 24 hours, 0 minutes and 0.2561 ms, according at time and Date, a site run by journalists and researchers. This is a difference of 0.1769 ms, so yes, mintool stuff. Some days may be free to an unusual degree, however, such as July 5, 2005, when the Earth’s rotation was 1.0516 ms lower than the average solar day.
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The year 2020 has been quite extraordinary in this respect, surpassing the 2005 record by no less than 28 times. The shortest of these was on July 19, when the Earth’s rotation was 1.4602 ms below the average solar day.
Interestingly, we can expect more of the same in 2021. ”[A]The average day in 2021 will be 0.05 ms shorter than 86,400 seconds ” rEPORTS Time and Date, which means that, throughout the year, “atomic clocks will have accumulated a gap of about 19 ms.”
Usually, these clocks run fast by a few hundred milliseconds each year, requiring a added the second jump to keep the timing of clocks.
“A second jump is a second added to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) to keep it in sync with astronomical time.” according to the US National Institute of Standards and Technology. “UTC is an atomic time scale, based on the performance of atomic clocks that are more stable than the Earth’s rotation rate.”
The last time this happened was in 2016. The second jumps are usually added at midnight on New Year’s Eve, so if you celebrated at that time and you didn’t wait an extra full second, you introduced 2017 a little prematurely.
We didn’t have to invoke a the second jump in 2016 and given the acceleration of the Earth’s rotation, we may have to do something we haven’t done before, namely take away a full second. In other words, a negative secondary jump.
This action would have the same purpose as a positive second, which is to keep UTC in step with our atomic clocks. That being said, the International Rotation and Earth Reference Systems Service, which decides on these issues, has at present no plan to do this.
It could happen, though. And if we should take a negative leap in the future, you can impress your friends by introducing the new year exactly one second ahead of the others. With pleasure.