ChinaDaily气候环境+生活语法填空专练-2024届高考英语冲刺复习

Climate change could affect timekeeping, study says 研究：气候变化或将影响全球计时 Climate change is affecting the speed of the Earth's rotation and could impact how we keep time, a study says. " 1 (globe) warming is already affecting world timekeeping," says the study, published in the journal Nature. Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) ---which is used by most of the world 2 (regulate) clocks and time - is calculated by the Earth's rotation. But the Earth's rotation rate is not constant and can therefore have 3 effect on how long our days and nights are. Changes to the planet's liquid core have meant the Earth has been spinning 4 (slight) quicker. Since the 1970s, to correct for this, about 27 leap seconds 5 (add) to the global clock, with timekeepers planning on subtracting a second for the first time in 2026. This is known as a "negative leap second." However, the study finds that ice melting 6 (cause) by climate change has partly offset that acceleration. Ice sheets are now losing mass five times 7 (fast) than they were 30 years ago, meaning that the negative leap second change will not be needed until 2029, the study suggests. "It's kind of impressive, even to me, we've done something that measurably changes how fast the Earth rotates," Duncan Agnew, the author of the study, told NBC News. "Things are happening that are unprecedented." The negative leap second has never been used before and, according to the study, its use "will pose an unprecedented problem" for computer systems across the world. "This has never happened before, and poses a major challenge to making sure that all parts of the global timing infrastructure show the same time," Mr Agnew, 8 is a researcher at the University of California, San Diego told AFP news agency. "Many computer programs for leap 9 (second) assume they are all positive, so these would have to be rewritten," he added. There has been some skepticism of the study, however. Demetrios Matsakis, former c