AGU: Geophysical Research Letters

 

Editors' Highlight

Warming oceans' effect on Earth's rotation

Movement of mass on Earth's surface caused by a warmer climate will likely cause changes to the planet's rotation and affect the length of day in the future, according to a new report. Landerer et al. (2007) analyzed future ocean conditions predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) fourth assessment report and suggest that expected warming over the next 200 years, without taking into account other processes, will shift enough water mass closer to the Earth's axis of rotation to lead to an incremental shortening of the day. The authors suggest that more heat will be captured by the oceans, raising the sea level and potentially changing the ocean's circulation and affecting the ocean-bottom pressure, which will transfer a significant portion of ocean mass to shallower shelf areas and away from the deep waters. They propose that while temperature and pressure changes vary according to their global location, their model shows a reduction in the length-of-day signal of approximately 0.12 ms by the end of the 22nd century.

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