… The Earth’s spinning, however, has recently begun to speed up and the length of the day has started getting shorter, for reasons not fully understood. In fact, research by a geophysicist in California finds that it’s only a matter of years before an extra second will need to be subtracted from universal time, rather than added to it. This possibility is raising concern because many computers, which have been programmed to handle an additional second, aren’t designed to lose a second, threatening to create glitches in systems governing aviation, financial markets, healthcare and more. It’s reminiscent of Y2K, when widespread bugs were feared when the calendar flipped to 2000. The research, published last year in the science journal Nature, also finds that such a negative leap second and its potential problems are being delayed, perhaps surprisingly, by climate change. Ice that is melting around the Earth’s poles is sending water — and mass — toward the equator and consequently slowing the planet’s rotation, counteracting the faster spin.