Ocean Tides and the Earth's Rotation (2001)

5 days ago (core2.gsfc.nasa.gov)

8 comments

susam

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PopAlongKid  2 days ago

>Currently the secular change in the rotation rate increases the length of day by some 2.3 milliseconds per day per century. [emphasis added]

>suppose the rotating earth is our clock and it's been 100 years [...] Then after 1000 days our earth clock loses about 2.3 seconds,

I think the math here is very wrong, or else I haven't had enough coffee yet.

  • doph  2 days ago

    >it's been about 100 years so now each day is 2.3 milliseconds longer

    >after 1000 days 1000 * 2.3 milliseconds = 2.3 seconds

    I don't think the example helps at all to explain the concept, but I think the math is right

    • lifeisstillgood  2 days ago

      So, if my maths is right that’s about 1 second extra slower every 500 days, which means a day will take 48 hours in about 43 million years

      That seems very very fast on galactic time scales - we would get tidally locked (rotate at speed of orbit?) in about 150x43 million … oh about 3 billion years … yeah never mind

      Edit A slightly different way of looking at it is we add a leap second every 2 or so years on average (27 in past 53 years). This seems about right with the above maths - it just amazes me

      What amazes me more is they are going to stop using leap seconds https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_second by 2035

      2 replies →

  • ta1243  2 days ago

    Not 2.3 seconds per day, 2.3 seconds in total over that 1000 days, not 2.3 seconds per day which would be crazy.

    On average each day over the last 100 years is only about 1.2ms longer, so total extra length after 100 years is 100365.251.15. A cumulative 42 seconds has been added in 100 years.