Experts are concerned about the way our planet is rotating due to climate change. For years, scientists have been concerned about the impacts of global warming.

Now, new research has revealed a change in the Earth’s spin due to the melting of the ice poles.

This could see a delay to the ‘leap second’ that was due to be added to the world’s Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) in 2026.

Now, we may not be seeing this change until 2029.

Experts say this change may result in clocks having to skip a second to keep up with a ‘negative leap’. The leap second is a clear example of how ongoing global issues to humanity are beginning to affect our sense of time.

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Can you imagine incorporating such a major time change like this across all our tech devices?

The study, led by Duncan Agnew from the University of California San Diego, discovered that it’s a result of melting ice caps.

This increase in temperatures is decreasing the angular velocity of the planet’s liquid core which has led to an increase in the angular velocity of the solid planet.

‘Extrapolating the trends for the core and other relevant phenomena to predict future Earth orientation shows that UTC as now defined will require a negative discontinuity by 2029,’ said Agnew, who’s also a geophysicist.

‘This will pose an unprecedented problem for computer network timing and may require changes in UTC to be made earlier than is planned. If polar ice melting had not recently accelerated, this problem would occur 3 years earlier: global warming is already affecting global timekeeping.’

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The impact on computer networks could be massive, especially in industries like financial markets that rely heavily on UTC.

Between the years 1972 and 2016, 27 separate leap seconds were recorded and added as Earth’s rotation slowed down. However, this rate of deceleration was diminishing at this point in time.

Agnew explained: ‘It’s not a huge change in the Earth’s rotation that’s going to lead to some catastrophe or anything, but it is something notable. It’s yet another indication that we’re in a very unusual time.’

Dennis McCarthy, retired director of time for the US Naval Observatory, who wasn’t part of the study pointed out: ‘We are headed toward a negative leap second. It’s a matter of when.’

Climate change has been the talk for decades with pressures on nations, governments and the public to find sustainable solutions – before the fate of our planet is out of our hands.

If the doomsday clock isn’t enough to scare people into showcasing how close we are for humanity to end because of climate change… maybe a supercomputer will.

As part of a study, the supercomputer analysed data on the Earth’s climate, and tectonic plates, as well as the ocean’s chemistry and biology.

Although, despite the UN climate chief announcing that we have ‘two years left to save the world‘, the end is not as near as you might be thinking.

Researchers from the University of Bristol presented a distant future where climate change could potentially eradicate humanity – a picture that looks very different from Earth today.

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They predict that tectonic plates will shift and merge to form a new supercontinent called Pangea Ultima.

Dr. Alexander Farnsworth said: ‘The newly-emerged supercontinent would effectively create a triple whammy, comprising the continentality effect, hotter sun and more CO2 in the atmosphere, of increasing heat for much of the planet.

This would result in a ‘mostly hostile environment devoid of food and water sources for mammals.’

Farnsworth continued: ‘Widespread temperatures of between 40 to 50 degrees Celsius, and even greater daily extremes, compounded by high levels of humidity would ultimately seal our fate.’

Meaning that all mammals including humans would ‘expire due to their inability to shed this heat through sweat, cooling their bodies.’

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By this time, only 8 – 16% of the future land would be habitable, with frequent volcanic eruptions, and a much hotter climate due to the brighter sun.

The new environmental conditions would be immensely difficult for a lot of species to adapt to.

Ultimately though, the supercomputer predicted the apocalypse won’t happen for another 250 million years.

But that shouldn’t relax people too much. The researchers stressed that this long-term forecast should not detract people from the urgency to address climate change as soon as possible.

‘It is vitally important not to lose sight of our current Climate Crisis, which is a result of human emissions of greenhouse gases,’ added study co-author Dr. Eunice Lo.

‘While we are predicting an uninhabitable planet in 250 million years, today we are already experiencing extreme heat that is detrimental to human health.

‘This is why it is crucial to reach net-zero emissions as soon as possible.’

January 28 is the big day that we find out where the Doomsday Clock will sit in 2025, and with it, we’re expected to tick closer to midnight than ever before.

The Russia-Ukraine war, conflict in the Middle East, and the general state of the Earth are all expected to factor into the Doomsday Clock’s new position.

When it comes to the latter, it’s an issue that many seem to be sleeping on.

In 2024 alone, the USA is said to have experienced 27 weather and climate disasters, ranging from tropical cyclones to winter storms – each costing over $1 billion. 2025 got off to an equally devastating start, with the Southern California wildfires leading to at least 29 deaths and causing over $250 billion in damage.

Climate change deniers will say it’s not a thing, but with 2024 being the warmest year on record and global temperatures soaring to 1.5°C (2.7 °F) above pre-industrial levels, the Earth is clearly changing.

The California wildfires have already got 2025 off to an unfortunate start (Mario Tama / Staff / Getty)

Although we dread to think what the future of the planet will look like, scientists at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine have warned that the knock-on effect will likely lead to millions of deaths.

A study published in Nature Medicine predicts that some 5.8 million Europeans will die due to climbing temperatures between 2015 and 2099. Looking at models from 854 European cities, Barcelona is expected to see a spike of 246,082 temperature-related deaths. This is followed by Rome (147,738 deaths), Naples (147,248 deaths), and Madrid (110,131 deaths) as literal hotspots where death tolls are poised to soar due to climate change.

There’s an unexpected side effect that 3.4 million cold-weather deaths will be prevented, but on the whole, an excess of 2.3 million deaths isn’t exactly good news.

Worryingly, the team points out that this doesn’t include deaths from catastrophic weather events, meaning the final toll will be a lot higher.

Scientists warn that we need to pay attention to climate change (Bloomberg Creative / Getty)

Discussing the research, author Dr. Pierre Masselot said: “Our results stress the urgent need to aggressively pursue both climate change mitigation and adaptation to increased heat.

“This is especially critical in the Mediterranean area where, if nothing is done, consequences could be dire.

“By following a more sustainable pathway, we could avoid millions of deaths before the end of the century.”

Even though around 70% of these deaths are thought to be preventable if we act quickly, this doesn’t seem likely.

Scientists have warned that global warming is accelerating beyond our control, and with President Trump signing his “Putting America First in International Environmental Agreements” executive order to pull out of the Paris Agreement, things could be about to get a lot worse.

Signed in 2016, the Paris Agreement is an international treaty on climate change that hopes to keep the rise in the global surface temperature well below 2 °C (3.6 °F) above the pre-industrial level. Unfortunately, it set a guideline of 1.5°C which has already been crossed.

While Trump might not seem too concerned by climate change, the deaths of millions is definitely something for the rest of us to think about.

A new research has given us a chilling glimpse into how the Earth will come to an end.

The recent discovery by astronomers has allowed us to look billions of years into the future at how our planet could one day look.

A newly discovered planet likely once orbited a star similar to our sun before it died and the planet drifted off into space, making it uninhabitable.

A new discovery gives us a glimpse into how the Earth will come to an end (fotograzia/Getty Images)

Studies suggest that a similar fate will await our own sun as it will eventually die in around five billion years’ time.

The planet and its host star are located near the center of the Milky Way galaxy, which is around 4,000 light years away from us.

The star is now a white dwarf, which is what our sun will become after it dies.

The sun’s death will vaporize the Earth’s oceans as it first becomes a red giant, expanding and consuming Mercury and Venus.

Keming Zhang is a lead author of the study and also an astronomer at University of California San Diego.

Zhang said in a statement: “We do not currently have a consensus whether Earth could avoid being engulfed by the red giant sun.

The sun will transform into a red giant as it starts to die (Pr3t3nd3r/Getty Images)

“In any case, planet Earth will only be habitable for around another billion years, at which point Earth’s oceans would be vaporized by runaway greenhouse effect – long before the risk of getting swallowed by the red giant.”

Unfortunately, the fate of Earth looks similar to this planet, whose rocky terrain might have once supported life.

Co-author Jessica Lu, an associate professor and chair of astronomy at UC Berkeley, said: “This system that Keming’s found is an example of a planet – probably an Earth-like planet originally on a similar orbit to Earth – that survived its host star’s red giant phase.”

However, while this planet shows what Earth will possibly look like in billions of years, that does not necessarily mean the doom of humanity.

Zhang went on to add: “As the sun becomes a red giant, the habitable zone will move to around Jupiter and Saturn’s orbit, and many of these moons will become ocean planets. I think, in that case, humanity could migrate out there.”

If humans have the technology by then, we could make new homes on Europa and Enceladus.

The moons orbit Jupiter and Saturn and their icy environment makes them inhabitable, but that could all change in the future.