As we explained in the previous article, two Chinese geologists have recently come to the conclusion that the inner core of the Earth has slowed down, and now rotates more slowly than the rest of the Earth.
Fortunately, this change in the speed of the terrestrial core hasn’t any appreciable effects on our daily life. In fact, it is thought that the core of the Earth follows a seven-decade cycle, increasing and decreasing its speed every 35 years. A stop of the Earth’s inner core was already observed in the 1970s, and there wasn’t any important consequence.
Longer days
One of the effects of this decrease in the speed of the Earth’s core is that the days become a little longer. However, this change is unnoticeable for humans. The authors of the study (Yi Yang and Xiaodong Song) have calculated that days will be one-thousandth of a second longer than before. Despite not having any direct impact on life on the planet, it will probably require some adjustments to the most precise atomic clocks, such as introducing leap seconds.
Terrestrial deformations, and effects on the magnetic field
Another effect that the decrease in the speed of the Earth’s core could entail is the appearance of minimal deformations on the surface of the Earth. This could lead to small changes in the sea level.
Finally, the slowdown of the Earth’s core also has some effects on the magnetic field of the planet. However, these effects aren’t critical, because it is the outer core (which surrounds the inner core) that is responsible for the magnetic field of the planet. According to the researchers, these variations in the magnetic field could affect the climate of the Earth. Nevertheless, this is only a hypothesis, that future studies should confirm.
As you can see, the changes in the speed of the inner core of the Earth haven’t any noticeable effects on life on the surface or in our daily life.
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