evidence: It’s normal for Arctic ice to melt and break off from glaciers in a process called calving, but the rate at which both are occurring is outpacing the production of new snow and ice, Mathieu Morlighem, a glaciologist and associate professor of Earth system science at UC Irvine, tells Inverse. The first thing to do, though, is to stop panicking, because it will take longer than a century for the polar ice caps to melt completely. But what if we sped things up just a little? Inverse spoke to Morlighem about how the ice caps melting could hypothetically transform the Earth by 2121. His response has been edited and condensed: [...] One other interesting effect is if you melt the ice, that will affect the Earth’s rotation. It may actually change how long a day is. The ice sheets are close to the axis of rotation of the Earth — they are around the poles. You melt this ice, and where this water will go is around the Earth, so further away from the axis of rotation. So the Earth is going to spin at a slower rate. It’s hard to quantify, but probably 10, 20 seconds longer for a day."