[LEAPSECS] earth speeding up

[Tom Van Baak]

> 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.


Next time you visit IERS, ask for the special tour, and they will show you the knob they use to adjust LOD ;-)


> 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.


And your plot also suggests the trend is extremely likely to end up in negative leap second territory during the next decade. Fit with whatever polynomial you want and predict the year.

/tvb