Prepare for longer days
2002-02-13 11:59
Washington - Global warming will not only flood the most beautiful tropical beaches, help spread disease and in general mess up the weather - it is going to make the days longer, too, Belgian researchers reported on Tuesday.
If levels of carbon dioxide rise by just one percent a year - which many scientists have predicted, they will double in 70 years.
At that level, the effects will change ocean currents and atmospheric winds enough to slow the Earth's rotation, the researchers report in Geophysical Research Letters.
In 70 years that increase will be measurable - 11 microseconds or 11 one-millionths of a second per decade. Over the century, the days will become 0.11 second longer, the team at Belgium's Royal Observatory and the Catholic University of Louvain said.
- Reuters