Humans have been accused of polluting the ground, the water, the air, andeven the airwaves, according to some. Now, it seems, we're messing around withtime.

A new study shows that industrial pollution, which is thought by manyscientists to fuel global warming, may have a remarkable side effect: A warmedatmosphere with stronger winds would slow the Earth down, causing the planet totake just a wee bit longer to make a full rotation on its axis.

Our days may be getting longer.

The effect, assuming it occurs, would be miniscule, measured in fractionsof a second over decades. The bottom line: If you live to be 100, pollutantsmay buy you an extra 11/100,000 of a second each day in your later yearscompared with your first year on the planet.

Olivier de Viron of Belgium's Royal Observatory led the new study, whichused computer models to analyze the effect of adding 1 percent more carbondioxide to the atmosphere each year, a human contribution established in otherstudies.

While critics dispute climate change data and the role of carbon dioxide,most leading scientists agree that Earth's climate is being warmed by increasedoutput of this and other so-called greenhouse gases. The idea that a warmedatmosphere would slow Earth's rotation is not a new one, and it is based onfundamentals of physics.

In an e-mail interview, de Viron explained what the models predict:

Global warming makes the atmosphere rotate faster. "The averagewind, which is already faster than the Earth, will go faster," de Vironsaid. A principle in physics states that the overall angular momentum of Earthand its atmosphere must be conserved, meaning that when one part increases itsrotation, the rotation of another part must decrease to compensate.

"Consequently, the Earth rotates slower, and the day islonger," de Viron said.

De Viron said it's impossible to know whether the effect is underway.Many other factors change Earth's rotation rate in subtle ways from day-to-dayand month-to-month. Only with decades of observation would the effect emergefrom a sea of other data.

The results will be published this month in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. VeroniqueDehant, Michel Crucifix and Hugues Goosse also worked on the study.

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