A day shortened by 1 millisecond can cause more earthquakes. Interesting.. I would be more inclined to agree if there was a step function (as in an immediate slowing at one moment in time) to that change, but they do have some data to back up the claims.
I would agree with the article if they could back up their data.
"The researchers searched to find correlations between these periods of intense seismic activity and other factors and discovered that when Earth’s rotation decreased slightly it was followed by periods of increased numbers of intense earthquakes. “The rotation of the Earth does change slightly – by a millisecond a day sometimes – and that can be measured very accurately by atomic clocks,” said Bilham."
"Bilham and Bendick found that there had been periods of around five years when Earth’s rotation slowed by such an amount several times over the past century and a half. Crucially, these periods were followed by periods when the numbers of intense earthquakes increased."
That all sounds good, but the atomic clock was invented in 1949. So in the 100 years prior to 1949, who was accurately recording the length of the day, in milliseconds, and how? The same question applies to ocean temps. The earth may be warming, but who exactly was measuring the temperature of the ocean water in the 1800's in the middle of the Atlantic and Pacific the entire year, down to an accurate tenth of a degree?
