Earth science theories

Los Angeles : Two theories by scientists have caught readers’ attention on Wednesday with one claiming that the sea ice off both Antarctica and in the Arctic has shrunk by an area the size of India. While the other one claiming that soon world might expect 25 hours a day.

Talking about the first report, Mark Serreze, director of the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado insists that the days are getting really, really long as both poles see record lows.

“There are some really crazy things going on. Temperatures in parts of the Arctic were 20 degrees Celsius above normal some days in November,” he said.

NSIDC data show 2 things:

Ice around Antarctica is retreating with a summer thaw, is the smallest for early December at 11.22 million square kilometers (4.33 million square miles), beating a record from 1982.

Arctic sea ice, expanding in winter, is at a record low of 10.25 million square kilometers (3.96 million square miles), below a 2006 record.

In another concern for scientists, researchers at Durham University and the UK’s Nautical Almanac Office feel that for the past 27 centuries, Earth days have been getting longer by two milliseconds per century – so in 200 million years, the day will be an hour longer.

Study author Leslie Morrison feels, “It’s actually slower than people previously thought – and it’s happening due to Earth’s orbit slowing down. It’s a very slow process. These estimates are approximate, because the geophysical forces operating on the Earth’s rotation will not necessarily be constant over such a long period of time.”

So either ways, it is bad news people- Either your city get submerged under water in coming days or you may have to work for another hour or so in future!