[LEAPSECS] earth speeding up

[Steve Allen]

On Tue 2014-04-15T13:51:10 +0000, Poul-Henning Kamp hath writ:

> That said, I'm not sure I fully buy Toms prediction yet, 35 years

> isn't that long of a data-set


The best quip about the plot of LOD since 1972 is that the institution
of leap seconds must obviously have caused the earth to speed up.
There was a clear local maximum of LOD around 1972, but that becomes
inconsequential by comparison to 1912/1913.  As seen in the second
plot of the Morrison and Stephenson data at
http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/leapsecs/dutc.html
it was about 100 years ago when the crust of earth was spinning slower
than any other time in recorded history.  Right now we are spinning
notably faster than in 1912.

--
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