New research suggests this will have implications for how we adjust the world's "UTC" time standard, to keep track of the planet's rotation.Authorities are re-thinking such adjustments to UTC because of the havoc it can play with international computer networks.
But the addition of leap seconds happens at irregular intervals, with just six months' notice, causing a headache for global technology systems – from power grids to financial markets, and from satellites to social media networks.This has caused widespread concern that computers might not cope well with this "negative leap second" and there could be unprecedented disruption to global systems.
But Professor Agnew also found the impact of the Earth's melting polar ice has postponed the need for this negative leap second by three years."If global warming hadn't occurred over the last 30 years, we'd be very close to a negative leap second already."The practice of adjusting UTC with leap seconds was put in place in a time before the internet.
An atomic clock at the National Measurement Institute in Sydney. UTC uses data from about 450 atomic clocks around the world, which rely on oscillations within atoms to define a second.There's also little standardisation around how organisations adjust to UTC changes, with companies like Meta and Google taking different approaches.
The International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service currently makes announcements on leap seconds, giving 6 months notice of changes.But he emphasised the lack of certainty in predicting the required timing for negative leap seconds – which is why actual decisions about leap seconds are only made six months out.
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