UTC or not UTC? – that was the question

An international agreement has been reached to retain the “leap second” in coordinated universal time (UTC). The deal was reached at the International Telecommunications Union World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-15) which is currently taking place in Geneva.

Leap seconds are periodically added to adjust irregularities between the earth’s rotation and UTC in order to remain close to mean solar time. A proposal had been made to suppress the leap second in order to make continuous time references available for electronic navigation and computer systems but, following concerns expressed by several Member States including the UK, the WRC has decided that further studies are needed on the impact of modifying UTC.

Whew!


 




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