Melting polar ice causing distortions in time – study

Global warming is throwing the Earth off balance and making the days longer, a California physicist has warned

The melting of the polar ice caps is shifting the Earth’s weight towards the Equator and slowing down our planet’s rotation, according to a report in the Nature scientific journal. The report warned that this slowdown could wreak havoc on global timekeeping.

Humanity depends on a network of 450 atomic clocks to keep Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).