The Earth Just Started Spinning Faster than Ever Before and Scientists Don’t Know Why

[msasa79]

FWIW, Mars is said to be spinning faster as well!

Mars is Spinning Faster and Faster

Before it retired, NASA's Mars Insight Lander sent home detailed data about the rotation of Mars. From these data, planetary scientists have discovered that the planet's rotation rate is accelerating by about four milliarcseconds per year, shortening its day by a fraction of a millisecond...

www.universetoday.com

Thanks for this UT article, it also provides a link to free-shared online edition of full Nature article mentioned in previous post in the thread.

In the original Nature article we see a fair deal of "could" statements trying to explain the estimated (modeled) speeding up of 4 mas/yr², which translates to 0.76 microsecond/yr shorter Martian days (a really very tiny fraction of a millisecond).

The Doppler measurements are analysed by using two different orbitography software packages, MONTE7 and GINS8,9 (Supplementary Information section1), using, as apriori,recently publishedvaluesfor the rotation and polar motion parameters10 and for therigid nutation parameters11 (Methods). Priors for the transfer-function parameters are taken in a large range of values (Supplementary Information section2). To decorrelate the precession rate and the orientation of the spin axis at the epochof reference, we also consider data from Viking1 Lander, in addition to 30 months of more-accurate RISE tracking data (Methods).

Martian rotation and orientation estimates
The estimated rotation and orientation parameters converge after 600 days of operations (Fig.1), and even sooner for the precession rate, on the basis of combined Viking and RISE data (Supplementary Information section4).
Separate analyses of Viking and RISE data led to incompatible esti-mates of the rotation parameters. We therefore estimated separate sets of seasonal spin series for each mission, along with a quadratic term (φ¨) modelling a spin acceleration. Our estimate of φ¨ = 4.11 × 10−12  ± 9.1  × 10−13 degrees per day2 (Fig.1a), the first secular (extremely slow) trend detected in the Martian rotation rate, translates into a decrease in Martian day length of 7.6 × 10−4 ms per year, which corresponds to a rotational acceleration of 4.0 ± 0.9 mas yr−2. This is three orders of magnitude larger than that resulting from Phobos tides and than the expected deceleration by the Sun. This rotational acceleration could be the expression of a long-term trend in the internal dynamics of Mars, or in its atmosphere and ice caps. A secular variation of the second- degree gravity zonal coefficient ̇J2 = −4.4  × 10−12 over one Martian year (an order of magnitude smaller than for Earth) would be consistent with the observed acceleration and could be related to postglacial rebound. It could also result from an extremely slow accumulation of ice at the polar caps (<4 cm per Earth year above the 80º N latitude of the permanent cap), leading to a decrease in atmospheric pressure of less than 0.1 Pa per Martian year, which is below the 1.5 Pa absolute error of the InSight APSS pressure sensor12.
We detected the small motion (≤40 cm) of a lander in inertial space, owing to the effect on nutations of the Martian liquid core, and obtained estimates for the nutation parameters F = 0.0615 ± 0.007 and τFCN = 2π/ωFCN = −243 ± 3.3 days (Fig.1c,d). Our estimated precession rate, ψ =−7,598.1±2.2̇ mas yr−1 (Fig.1b), corresponds to a normalized polar moment of inertia of 0.36419 ± 0.00011 (Supplementary Infor-mation section5). New constraints on the core of Mars can be derived from these values by using a set of models of the interior structure.

Funnily or sadly, pick your choice, there's no mention of potential impact of rotating solar magnetic field on the Martian rotation, very similar to stubbornly sticking to lunar and gravitational effects and/or atmospheric drag influence on Earth's rotation, while just a simple look at the IERS data evidently shows no such things to be seen there.

 

[msasa79]

Thinking lately how much MSM reports about scientific results tend to be distorted and misleading, or simply hyped up to make for a more sensational 'news', the quoted UT article below might be better suited for Best Jokes thread, because when assessed rationally and logically it's more hilarious than Zelensky saying "he loves freedom and democracy".

FWIW, Mars is said to be spinning faster as well!

Mars is Spinning Faster and Faster

Before it retired, NASA's Mars Insight Lander sent home detailed data about the rotation of Mars. From these data, planetary scientists have discovered that the planet's rotation rate is accelerating by about four milliarcseconds per year, shortening its day by a fraction of a millisecond...

www.universetoday.com

Leaving aside that the reported number of 7.6 × 10 ^-4 ms/yr was an estimate, i.e. modeled/fitted and not really measured, i.e. obtained through real observations, what that number actually means is that it would take 20 MILLION years (or just 10 million depending on which year, the Earth one or Martian one, we take as a measure of time) for then hypothetical future Martian time keepers/watchers to be in the need to subtract 1.5 leap second from their clocks, synchronized 20 million years (or 10 million, whatever) prior to that, to keep them in accordance with natural rotational rhythm of their planet. Ain't that something, eh?
& & all the non-binary 'facepalm' emojis Scottie might give us

 

[msasa79]

what that number actually means is that it would take 20 2 MILLION years (or just 10 1 million depending on which year, the Earth one or Martian one, we take as a measure of time) for then hypothetical future Martian time keepers/watchers to be in the need to subtract 1.5 leap second from their clocks, synchronized 20 2 million years (or 10 1 million, whatever) prior to that, to keep them in accordance with natural rotational rhythm of their planet.

Well, that's what being 'emotional' (ranting) tends to do to the rational thinking.

 

[msasa79]

Just out published today- study was done prior to the recent acceleration last June.

the study

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-022-01112-z.epdf?

This was "multidecadal" study and now also the "intradecadal" one was performed, including using the LOD data yearly averages.

The 8.5-year rhythm of Earth's inner core -- Sott.net

Researchers from China have confirmed the existence of an approximately 8.5-year Inner Core Wobble (ICW) in both polar motion and length-of-day variations, revealing a static tilt of about 0.17 degrees between the Earth's inner core and mantle,...

www.sott.net

And the original paper:

Inner core static tilt inferred from intradecadal oscillation in the Earth’s rotation - Nature Communications

A static tilt of some 0.17° between the rotation axes of the solid inner core and the mantle is inferred from the observed approximate 8.5 year periodic inner core wobble in both polar motion and length-of-day variations of the Earth’s rotation.

www.nature.com

 

[dennis]

Thank You Mytja,

So, if I understand correctly (a very big IF), there is a drag or retarding force resulting in or caused by accumulation of more dense material in the NW (counter to Earth rotation) direction in the core that differentiates it from coupling with the mantle.

Maybe they should consider possible causes beyond the atmosphere, for instance the orbital relationship with Venus? It has an 8 year cycle with Earth.
Its also interesting that the 8.5 year period is exactly half of the 17 degree tilt in terms of number relationship.

 

[MK Scarlett]

Its also interesting that the 8.5 year period is exactly half of the 17 degree tilt in terms of number relationship.

Are you talking about Pluto and its inclined orbit relative to the ecliptic with 17°? Or something else?

 

[dennis]

The Earth inner core wobble at 0.17 degrees expresses or cycles around the plane of its mantle over an 8.5 year period.
Its 0.17 degrees not 17 degrees so I made an incorrect comparison, sorry for that.
Nothing to do with Pluto.
Look at Fig.4 drawing in the second article in Mytja's post # 50 just above

 

[msasa79]

Maybe they should consider possible causes beyond the atmosphere, for instance the orbital relationship with Venus? It has an 8 year cycle with Earth.

To tell you honestly, after the initial excitement, I was quite dissapointed with what was done in the study.

Not only did they not check any potential (cosmic or solar system) cause beyond Earth's immediate surroundings, but they also removed any presumed "external excitation source" and just focused on assumed Earth's internal motion.

The pretreatments of the ΔLOD and PM time series are shown in the Methods. Figure 1 shows the ΔLOD and PM records used. For the periodic signals present in the PM and ΔLOD, the consensus is that they are excited by the Earth’s internal or external sources through the conversion of angular momentum21. Hence, we need to rule out the influence of external excitation sources before determining that a target signal is from the Earth’s internal motion. There are three external excitation sources of the PM and ΔLOD changes, the atmospheric, oceanic, and hydrological effects. Of these, the first two effects are the two main external excitation sources21,22,23; although hydrological effects will also excite the Earth’s rotation changes, previous studies have proven that the hydrological effects have no significant contribution to the target 5.5–10 yr period band13,23 and different hydrological models have clear deviations13,24. Hence, similar to previous studies13,22, we only consider the atmospheric and oceanic effects.

Pretreatment described in Methods part of the paper revealed that they 'tweaked' the datasets (using a model) to extract only those periodicity signals they were initially interested in.

Datasets and preprocessing​

The PM observations were obtained from the EOPC01 dataset (1861/01-1889/12 with 0.1 yr sampling and 1900/01–2019/12 with 0.05 yr sampling); the ΔLOD record was combined with a long-term dataset56 (1623/06-2008/06 with 1 yr sampling from IERS; EOPC01) and the EOPC04 ΔLOD record57 (1962/01–2019/12 with 1-day sampling); the AAM (1949/01–2019/12, sampling at 6 h) record was from the Special Bureau for the Atmosphere58,59,60. The AAM was calculated from NCEP/NCAR reanalyses archived on pressure surfaces, and the inverted barometer (IB) pressure term was chosen as the mass term. The OAM record was obtained from the Special Bureau for the Oceans’ datasets: ECCO_50 yr61 (1949/01–2003/01, sampling at 10 days) and ECCO_kf080i62 (1993/01–2020/3, sampling at 1 day). Those datasets are shown in Supplementary Fig. 1. To standardize the sampling intervals of the records, we down-sampled all records to 1 yr, and to avoid aliasing effects in this down-sampling process, a low-pass filter (with a cut-off frequency fc = 0.5 cpy) was used prior to down-sampling.

Note that although the theoretical amplitudes of the 8.85 yr and 9.3 yr zonal tides are quite small (only ~2 μs for the 9.3 yr tide and <1 μs for the 8.85 yr tide) and far less than the background noise level of the ΔLOD time series, they were removed from this ΔLOD record based on a given model63 to avoid the effects of some well-known signals on the target ~8 yr period band. The dΔLOD/dt was obtained by a classical discrete numerical derivation algorithm, i.e., dΔLOD(ti)/dt = [ΔLOD(ti+1) − ΔLOD(ti)]/Δt.

Then, in Supplementary Information where they described "The execution of the stabilized AR-z spectrum", it's written that the Monte Carlo method was introduced to further suppress the error estimation.

In addition, when comparing the LOD data yearly averages curve in Fig. 1c with the same plot in Supplementary Fig. 1c, they evidently don't match, with the plot in the actual paper body most likely being the 'wrong' one, because the similar plot to Suppl. Fig. 1c is found in Extended Data Fig. 7 to the first 'multidecadal' study.
And that's not taking into account the plots already shown in this thread where it's obvious that, looking at the yearly averages, the Earth wasn't spinning faster in early 2000s than it was in 2020 (check the red line in this plot for example) as the Fig. 1c in the paper indicated.

After seeing all that, I kinda lost further interest to go into more detailed reading of the rest of the paper, and decided to wait for cca 40 more days until complete 62 years of LOD daily data (1962-01-01 - 2023-12-31) would be available online to conduct more thourough Fourier analysis, using possibly a 'sliding time interval' to check for potential time evolution of signal positions, i.e. quasi-periodicities that might change in time as described in the paper below.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/1916203_Rotational_Quasi-Periodicities_and_the_Sun_-_Heliosphere_Connection

Besides, from preliminary analysis of LOD daily data shown in this thread, most dominant periodicity signals were at 1 year and less, except the one of cca 20+ years which in fact might correspond to full solar magnetic field cycle that takes cca 22 years to make a complete round (N pole come back to its 'initial' position, for example).

One 'good' thing that came out of this study though, or at least an interesting one for me, is that it provided LOD yearly averages for period before 1962, where it showed that the Earth was spinning at least as fast, if not even faster, around 1930s as it was last year. FWIW.

 

[cyclical cataclysms]

Earths magnetic poles are currently in an excursion event that's also speeding up. They're set to meet south of India. Our planet is also said to be "reshaping". Earth bulges at the equator due to the centrifugal forces at play. Now if an outside force like geomagnetism were to deviate from its "normal" pattern, would that be a consideration for the earths rotation irregularities? Just my thoughts

 

[msasa79]

Earths magnetic poles are currently in an excursion event that's also speeding up. They're set to meet south of India.

Maybe.
If two poles of a magnetic dipole were to meet as suggested, would then they form an 'elusive' magnetic monopole?

Our planet is also said to be "reshaping". Earth bulges at the equator due to the centrifugal forces at play.

Equatorial bulge is there alright.
How long would it take to 'make' one we measure nowadays, if Earth would change its rotational pattern today?

Now if an outside force like geomagnetism were to deviate from its "normal" pattern, would that be a consideration for the earths rotation irregularities? Just my thoughts

If geomagnetism as magnetism of the planet Earth is an "outside force", what and where is its source/origin outside of our mother planet? And if geomagnetic poles are in an excursion event as suggested, what is exactly the 'normal' pattern of geomagnetism?

 

[msasa79]

Complete 62 years of IERS daily data, from 01/01/1962 to 31/12/2023, has been published online, and it's evident from the plot below that the speeding up (in average) turned back to slowing down last calendar year.



Here's also the table for 2000-2023 period of:
Year - {{Day}, Minimum yearly value} - yearly Mean - yearly Standard Deviation - {{Day}, Maximum yearly value} - yearly Cumulative



In addition, here's the Extended Data Fig. 7 to the first 'multidecadal' study (Fig. 11 on this link), where yearly means from 1900 to 2021 were shown, and it's evident that Earth was spinning rather fast around 1930, i.e. even faster (in yearly means) than in recent years.
The plot is showing -LOD, i.e. it's turned upside down with respect to the first plot in the post (rotated around x-axis); the grey spiky line are daily values (same as blue line above, just from 1962 to 2021) and circles connected with black line are yearly averages (like red circles+line above, just from 1900 to 2021).



I won't bother here at the moment with the Fourier part of the story about Earth's rotation, and checking for potential correlations with solar magnetic field and/or interplanetary magnetic field and/or heliospheric current sheet (mentioned at the beginning of the Sol and its phenomena thread) and their rotations - forumites and mods/admins here will show if and when there'll be interest for that on the Forum.

 

[msasa79]

The Earth Just Started Spinning Faster than Ever Before and Scientists Don't Know Why - Truth Press

The Earth recently completed a rotation faster than ever before at 1.59 millisecond under 24 hours, and the consequences for how we keep time have experts around the world alarmed. It could be the first time in world history that global clocks will have to be sped up. “This would be required to...

truthpress.com

The Earth recently completed a rotation faster than ever before at 1.59 millisecond under 24 hours, and the consequences for how we keep time have experts around the world alarmed.
...

About two years after that allegedly historic day, June 29^th 2022, when the Earth had spun faster than ever before, even though that claim already proved to be incorrect as can be seen from the previous posts in this thread, another blow, that is two of them, to the "historicity" of the statement came roughly three months ago, when our planet spun even faster than on that June day in 2022, for two days in a row:

1. 2024/7/5 --> LOD = -0.0016508 s (1.65ms under 24h);
2. 2024/7/6 --> LOD = -0.0016238 s (1.62ms under 24h).

The exact LOD values can be obtained from the IERS online daily data website, with usual monthly delay, or graphically inspected from the graph/plot at the top of the Earth Orientation Center (EOP) index webpage.

Interestingly, not a word from the mainstream media has come to my attention about this "newly" achieved historic record in Earth's spinning speed.