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5d ago

Timekeepers Weigh Ending the Leap Second as Earth Speeds Up

The BIPM is urgently reviewing whether to accelerate the planned phase-out because faster recent rotation raises the risk of a never-used negative leap second.

The Shepherd Gate Clock at the Royal Observatory Greenwich in London was the first clock to show Greenwich Mean Time, or GMT, directly to the public.
A 5,000-year-old sundial at the Caral archaeological complex in Peru.
An atomic clock is seen at Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Germany's national metrology institute. Coordinated Universal Time combines data from about 450 atomic clocks operated by more than 80 timing centers worldwide.
Time measured by Earth’s rotation can’t keep in sync with atomic clocks

Overview

  • Reporting says the International Bureau of Weights and Measures is urgently considering moving the timeline for ending the leap second because of new rotation data.
  • A leap second is a one-second adjustment to Coordinated Universal Time that keeps atomic clocks aligned with Earth's rotation; a negative leap second would delete a second and has never been used.
  • Scientists have observed unusually rapid Earth rotation over the past decade, which raises the chance that a negative leap second could be needed before the previously planned 2035 phase-out.
  • Experts warn deleting a second could break software, network time servers and timestamped records because many systems are built to handle added seconds, not removed ones.
  • Any decision to end or accelerate the phase-out will require multilateral agreement and detailed transition planning by national time institutes and technology operators to limit disruption.