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Freedom251 › Blog › climate change

How Climate Change Can Affect Earth’s Rotation and the Length of a Day

By Freedom251 Team · · 3 min read

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Yes. Climate-related melting of land ice and changes in water stored on land shift mass toward the oceans, changing Earth’s rotation so that days become slightly longer. The effect is measurable but tiny: NASA reports a climate-related length-of-day increase rate of about 1.33 milliseconds per century for 2000–2018. That is a rate, not the amount added to each day in a single year.

How can climate change affect Earth’s rotation?

The key is not heat directly slowing Earth’s spin. It is the movement of water and ice. As grounded glaciers and ice sheets lose mass, some meltwater flows into the oceans. Changes in water stored on land, including groundwater, also redistribute mass across the planet.

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Moving mass farther from Earth’s rotation axis increases the planet’s moment of inertia. If angular momentum is conserved, a greater moment of inertia means a slightly slower rotation—like an ice skater extending their arms. NASA describes this mass-redistribution mechanism in its 2024 explanation of climate change and Earth’s rotation.

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This does not mean melting ice makes Earth meaningfully heavier. The effect described is a redistribution of mass, not a significant increase in the planet’s total mass.

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How much longer is a day because of climate change?

The effect is measured in milliseconds per century. NASA reports that the climate-related rate of day-lengthening was around 0.3–1.0 milliseconds per century at points in the twentieth century, and about 1.33 milliseconds per century over 2000–2018. The study record gives the latter estimate as 1.33 ± 0.03 milliseconds per century. These figures describe rates of change, not a day gaining that many milliseconds each year.

A 2024 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences estimated that, under a high-emissions scenario, the climate-driven rate could reach 2.62 ± 0.79 milliseconds per century by 2100. This is a scenario-based projection, not a guaranteed outcome. The estimate is reported in the PNAS study record.

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Does melting ice slow Earth’s rotation?

Grounded land ice can contribute to the effect when meltwater flows into the ocean and redistributes mass. Floating sea ice is different: it already displaces water, so melting it does not raise sea level in the same way or produce the stated land-ice transfer from the poles to the oceans. NASA explains this distinction in its climate FAQ on melting ice and Earth’s rotation.

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That FAQ gives a hypothetical scale example: if all Greenland ice melted and its meltwater reached the ocean, global sea level would rise by about 7 meters (23 feet), and the day would lengthen by about 2 milliseconds relative to today. This is a complete-melt illustration, not a near-term forecast.

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Is climate change the only cause of changes in day length?

No. Earth’s rotation varies under the influence of lunar tidal friction, exchanges of momentum with the atmosphere and oceans, water and ice redistribution, and processes inside Earth. NASA puts the Moon’s long-term contribution to day-length increase at about 2.4 milliseconds per century on average. Climate-related change is one part of a broader signal, and it should not be treated as the explanation for every short-term fluctuation.

Climate-related day-length change and polar motion are also different measurements. Length of day tracks how fast Earth rotates. Polar motion tracks the position of the spin axis relative to Earth’s surface. A 2024 Nature Geoscience study attributed about 90% of interannual and multidecadal polar-motion variations in its analysis to surface mass redistribution. That result concerns polar motion, not a percentage of day-length change; the authors also discuss contributions from processes in Earth’s core.

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Why does a millisecond-scale change matter?

No one would notice the climate-related change in an ordinary day. It matters to scientists who measure Earth orientation and to precision timekeeping, where small differences between Earth’s rotation and clock time must be tracked.

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In a 2024 Nature paper, Duncan Carr Agnew projected that UTC as then defined would require a negative discontinuity by 2029, based on an extrapolation of Earth-rotation trends. The paper concluded that warming-related polar ice melt delayed that projected issue compared with a counterfactual without the recently accelerated melt. This is a conditional technical timekeeping result, not a certainty about what will happen by that date or a change people would feel in daily life. See the Nature paper on UTC and Earth’s rotation.

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