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Climate change is changing how we keep time

Melting ice sheets are slowing Earth's rotation speed, complicating global timekeeping

A picture of Greenland's ice sheet near Baffin Bay.

The rapidly accelerating melting of Earth’s polar ice sheets — including ice atop Greenland (shown here) — is slowing the planet’s spin, which affects global timekeeping.

KEREM YUCEL/AFP via Getty Images

By Carolyn Gramling

Climate change may be making it harder to know exactly what time it is.

The rapid melting of the ice sheets atop Greenland and Antarctica, as measured by satellite-based gravitational measurements, is shifting more mass toward Earth’s waistline.