The climate crisis is causing the length of each day to increase, according to an analysis, as the mass melting of polar ice reshapes the planet.

This phenomenon is a striking demonstration of how human actions are transforming Earth, scientists said, rivaling natural processes that have existed for billions of years.

The change in day length is on the order of milliseconds, but it is enough to disrupt internet traffic, financial transactions and GPS navigation, all of which rely on precise time measurement, reports The Guardian.

The length of the day on Earth has steadily increased over geological time due to the gravitational resistance of the Moon on the planet's oceans and land. However, the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets due to human-induced global warming has redistributed stored water from high latitudes into the world's oceans, leading to more water in the seas near the equator. This makes Earth more oblate—or "fatter"—slowing the planet's rotation and further extending the length of the day.

Humanity's planetary impact has also been recently demonstrated through research showing that water redistribution has caused the Earth's rotational axis—the North and South Poles—to shift. Other research has shown that carbon emissions generated by humans are shrinking the stratosphere.

Human timekeeping relies on atomic clocks, which are extremely precise. However, the exact timing of a day—a rotation of the Earth—varies due to lunar tides, climatic impacts and other factors, such as the slow rebound of the Earth's crust after the retreat of ice sheets formed during the last ice age.