A leap second! Finally!

[pne]

According to the issue of "Bulletin C" (number 30) which I just received, there'll be a positive leap second at the end of 31 December 2005—the first such leap second since 1999, which is quite a long time.

     INTERNATIONAL EARTH ROTATION AND REFERENCE SYSTEMS SERVICE (IERS) 

SERVICE INTERNATIONAL DE LA ROTATION TERRESTRE ET DES SYSTEMES DE REFERENCE

SERVICE DE LA ROTATION TERRESTRE
OBSERVATOIRE DE PARIS                                   
61, Av. de l'Observatoire 75014 PARIS (France)
Tel.      : 33 (0) 1 40 51 22 26
FAX       : 33 (0) 1 40 51 22 91
e-mail    : services.iers@obspm.fr
http://hpiers.obspm.fr/eop-pc

                                              Paris, 4 July 2005
                                                           
                                              Bulletin C 30
                                
                                              To authorities responsible 
                                              for the measurement and 
                                              distribution of time                                         


                                   UTC TIME STEP
                            on the 1st of January 2006
                      

A positive leap second will be introduced at the end of December 2005.
The sequence of dates of the UTC second markers will be:               
                
                          2005 December 31,     23h 59m 59s
                          2005 December 31,     23h 59m 60s
                          2006 January   1,      0h  0m  0s
              
The difference between UTC and the International Atomic Time TAI is:
  
  from 1999 January 1, 0h UTC, to 2006 January 1  0h UTC  : UTC-TAI = - 32s
  from 2006 January 1, 0h UTC, until further notice       : UTC-TAI = - 33s
  
Leap seconds can be introduced in UTC at the end of the months of December 
or June, depending on the evolution of UT1-TAI. Bulletin C is mailed every 
six months, either to announce a time step in UTC or to confirm that there 
will be no time step at the next possible date.



                                              Daniel GAMBIS
                                              Head              
                                              Earth Orientation Center of IERS
                                              Observatoire de Paris, France

Comments

[denial-land.livejournal.com]

Yay! I'll make sure to watch out for it ;)

[lexabear.livejournal.com]

This is going to make counting down to New Year's complicated. Do we start counting a second later to incorporate the leap-second? Or will he have to count "one" twice? I don't know if I can handle this sort of tradition-breaking!

[pne.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't worry about it since it only affects new year countdown for people in the same time zone as UTC (in December, that's basically Iceland, the British Isles, Portugal, and parts of Western Africa).

Leap seconds happen just 0:00 UTC, not local time, so if you're in Maryland (which I'll guess is EST in winter, UTC-0500), you'll have the leap second at 6:59:60 p.m.

So as long as you set your clocks correctly around 7, you'll be fine counting seconds normally before midnight :)

[lexabear.livejournal.com]

Oooh, my friend has one of those super-special watches that automatically sets itself to some cesium clock in Colorado. I should tell him to stare at it around 7 and see how long it takes to fix itself.

[angharad.livejournal.com]

To authorities responsible for the measurement and distribution of time

Whoa. That sounds all cool and "Momo" or "Dark City" with the backstage management. What a fun job title that would be: Time Distribution Authority!