[RndTbl] Climate change is messing with GPS time-keeping!

[Adam Thompson]

 From the fediverse, we are told:

* 
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225215051_The_influence_of_global_warming_in_Earth_rotation_speed
* 
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11555-global-warming-will-make-earth-spin-faster/


It was also pointed out, and I agree at least to *some* degree, that 
~50y of data is not really enough to *reliably* link anything 
climate-related to geodetic changes when we know that both of those 
domains have processes lasting centuries if not millennia.

Also curious how this paper was published in 1999, but we're only 
hearing people making that link in public discourse in 2021.  Doesn't 
negate the research, it's just curious that it lay fallow this long.

Regardless, the point ultimately is that older NTP software will 
probably barf in a nasty way when a negative leap second is issued.  
Keep your NTP software up to date!

-Adam


On 2021-08-05 17:03, Adam Thompson wrote:
> Gilbert didn't propose any such thing, he reported on what he read AND
> PROVIDED HIS SOURCES.
> 
> The twitter thread linked goes on to reference a GitLab discussion
> about Linux's gpsd daemon and a fix to deal with some upcoming
> problems.
> The Gary Miller who originally mentioned a connection to climate
> change in the GitLab thread is "the GPS and PPS guy" on the NTPSec
> project.
> 
> While I don't know that any of the people cited, indirectly or not,
> are necessarily a worldwide authority on geodetic science, I do trust
> that they know a lot more about it, particularly as it relates to
> timekeeping, than I do.
> 
> Quick googling reveals that we haven't needed any of the
> previously-expected leap seconds since 2016 due to a small increase in
> the earth's rotational speed:
> * https://www.timeanddate.com/time/negative-leap-second.html
> * https://www.timeanddate.com/time/earth-faster-rotation.html
> *
> https://www.masterclock.com/company/masterclock-inc-blog/will-we-have-a-negative-leap-second
> 
> Regardless of any connection to climate change, that's worth knowing
> if you run a high-stratum NTP server.  Or a buggy GPS receiver, for
> that matter... :-(
> 
> And supposedly (if I knew what on earth I was looking at!) here's the
> raw data showing the increase in the earth's rotational speed:
> * https://datacenter.iers.org/data/6/bulletina-xxxiv-030.txt
> 
> Nothing I could find in ~5 minutes of searching either substantiated
> OR refuted the supposed link between climate change and the earth's
> rotation, so, please, cite anything you can find, pro OR con.  Yes,
> it's a stretch, but that claim came from a - literal - worldwide
> expert on certain aspects of timekeeping, who presumably read or heard
> it somewhere he thought was reliable.
> 
> -Adam
> 
> 
> On 2021-08-05 15:31, Daulton wrote:
>> Hi Gilbert,
>> 
>> How is it you propose that "climate change" is actually speeding up
>> the rotation of the earth? This seems like a very long stretch of an
>> assertion. According to other sources, "the speed of the Earth’s
>> rotation varies constantly due to the motion of its molten core,
>> oceans and atmosphere, as well as the effect of celestial bodies such
>> as the Moon".
>> 
>> Daulton
>> 
>> On Thursday, August 05, 2021 14:44 CDT, "Gilbert E. Detillieux"
>> <gedetil at cs.umanitoba.ca> wrote:
>> 
>>> For those of you who took in Wyatt's May presentation on setting up a
>>> GPS-based NTP server,...
>>> 
>>> https://muug.ca/meetings/20-21.html#may
>>> 
>>> ... you may be interested in this bit of weirdness...
>>> 
>>> https://twitter.com/ariadneconill/status/1422163289518313474?s=21
>>> TIL: Climate change has resulted in the earth spinning faster,
>>> cancelling out leap seconds.
>>> 
>>> “As I previously said, the reason it will affect live GPS is due to, 
>>> and
>>> I hate to say it, global warming causing the earth to speed up,
>>> unexpectedly.”
>>> 
>>> So, now you know!...  :)
>>> 
>>> Gilbert
>>> 
>>> --
>>> Gilbert E. Detillieux        E-mail:  <gedetil at cs.umanitoba.ca>
>>> Dept. of Computer Science    Web:     
>>> http://cs.umanitoba.ca/~gedetil/
>>> University of Manitoba
>>> Winnipeg MB CANADA  R3T 2N2
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Roundtable mailing list
>>> Roundtable at muug.ca
>>> https://muug.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
>> 
>> 
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