Some experts theorize that the melting and refreezing of ice caps on the world’s tallest mountains may be a contributing factor.
“Earth has recorded its shortest day since scientists began using atomic clocks to measure its rotational speed. On June 29, 2022, Earth completed one spin in 1.59 milliseconds less than 24 hours. This is the latest in a series of speed records for Earth since 2020.”
And that there is probably a “70 percent chance” our planet has reached the minimum length of a day. And we may never have to use a negative leap second.
When a negative value is assigned during a leap second event. It could cause numerous outages. For example, in 2012, Reddit experienced a leap-second outage. The site was shut down for 30 to 40 minutes. The event occurred when the time change confused the high-resolution timer (hrtimer), which created hyperactivity on the servers. And ultimately locked up the machines’ CPUs.
What is a leap second?
In 1972, the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS) introduced the leap second concept.
