The world may have to reset the computer clock due to global warming

In recent times, fluctuations in the Earth's core have caused the planet to rotate faster, prompting scientists to speculate that instead of adding a second, it would be necessary for the first time to subtract some time, a negative leap second, by 2026 instead, the report added.

However, the polar ice melting due to global warming may have counteracted that trend. This might now result in a delay to the adjustment until 2029.

The study suggested that this adjustment would have occurred three years earlier if climate change had not slowed the Earth’s rotation.

"Global warming has proceeded to the point that its effects are showing up in how fast the whole Earth rotates," the Financial Times quoted Duncan Agnew, who led the research, as saying.

Agnew is a professor of geophysics at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

While this change in Earth's rotation has never been seen before, this "re-emphasises that we are living in a time when unprecedented changes are happening," Agnew noted.

Water pours into the oceans as the land ice melts at the poles due to increasing temperatures, redistributing mass away from the axis of rotation and throughout the planet. When more mass lies closer to the equator, the speed of Earth's rotation slows down. On the other hand, when the mass moves towards the poles it speeds up.