[LEAPSECS] Chile Earthquake May Have Shortened Days on Earth

M. Warner Losh imp at bsdimp.com
Tue Mar 2 20:29:27 EST 2010


In message: <4B8DB16B.22590.226A9B78 at dan.tobias.name>
"Daniel R. Tobias" <dan at tobias.name> writes:

: Just saw this article:

:

: http://www.cbs12.com/articles/earth-4724481-chile-axis.html

:

: What effect is this going to have on leap seconds in the near future?

: I would expect that, since the leap seconds are required due to the

: lengthening of the day, shortening it now would either reduce the

: frequency of leap seconds in the near future, or even necessitate a

: negative leap second if the effect is large enough.

:

: What length is the day currently, following the apparent shortening

: due to the earthquake? Is it more or less than the duration where

: the SI second has parity with earth-rotation rubber seconds?


As the article notes, the seasonable variability of the earth is also
on the order of a millisecond. At most, this will slow down the next
leap second a bit, but I think on the whole we'll not see much effect
from this at all...

Warner


More information about the LEAPSECS mailing list