Here is an article that explains this, for anyone who's curious.
Basically, the construction of the dam effectively redistributed trillions of kgs of water to a higher altitude. This increases the Earth's moment of inertia (a measure of how "difficult" it is to spin it, think of it as a rotational equivalent to mass), thereby slowing its rotation very slightly - the article quotes 0.06 milliseconds microseconds added to the length of the day, from a calculation by NASA. The concept is the same as a spinning ice skater tucking their arms in to speed up, or extending them to slow down.
EDIT: as a few people pointed out, it's 0.06 microseconds, not milliseconds... which, either way, definitely has no significant effects - regular tides, ocean currents and geological phenomena do much more than this all the time.
Ixuvia on July 28th, 2020 at 08:40 UTC »
Here is an article that explains this, for anyone who's curious.
Basically, the construction of the dam effectively redistributed trillions of kgs of water to a higher altitude. This increases the Earth's moment of inertia (a measure of how "difficult" it is to spin it, think of it as a rotational equivalent to mass), thereby slowing its rotation very slightly - the article quotes 0.06 milliseconds microseconds added to the length of the day, from a calculation by NASA. The concept is the same as a spinning ice skater tucking their arms in to speed up, or extending them to slow down.
EDIT: as a few people pointed out, it's 0.06 microseconds, not milliseconds... which, either way, definitely has no significant effects - regular tides, ocean currents and geological phenomena do much more than this all the time.
TrailerParkTonyStark on July 28th, 2020 at 08:43 UTC »
I have a question... Is this a God dam? M'heh heh heh heh
Deskbot on July 28th, 2020 at 09:24 UTC »
All dams will slow the earths rotation.