Leap seconds reportedly set to end under Continuous UTC
TechnologyUnverifiedUpdated:
The General Conference on Weights and Measures (GCPM) has reportedly voted to stop introducing leap seconds and move to Continuous UTC, allowing a larger gap between civil time and Earth-rotation time.
A plan to allow UTC and UT1 to differ by up to an hour
According to the report, the GCPM decided at its 28th meeting to stop adding leap seconds. The replacement, called Continuous UTC, is scheduled to take effect next year and would permit UTC and UT1 to differ by as much as one hour.
Leap seconds were used to keep Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) synchronized with UT1, a time scale calculated from changes in Earth's rotation, according to the report.
The report says the GCPM voted to end leap-second use and replace it with Continuous UTC, under which UTC and UT1 may diverge by up to 3,600 seconds from next year.
Infrastructure concerns over a negative leap second
The reported resolution cites the difficulty of handling leap seconds in connected devices, multi-sensor systems, smart grids, virtual services, and other systems that depend on synchronized time. It specifically describes a negative leap second as a high-risk event for critical infrastructure that is largely unprepared.
Sources
- The RegisterTime Lords kill leap seconds, before they become the new Y2K bugRead source →