Member states of the General Conference on Weights and Measures voted to immediately abolish the leap second and replace it with a leap hour to maintain UTC continuity.
Member states of the General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) voted on 15 October to immediately abolish the leap second. The resolution, passed at the organization's 28th meeting outside Paris, replaces the current adjustment mechanism with a "leap hour" protocol.
Leap seconds have historically served to align time based on the sun’s position and Earth’s natural rotation with Universal Coordinated Time (UTC), which is based on the stable ticking of atomic clocks. According to Nature, these adjustments have been a "thorn in timekeepers' sides," disrupting computing systems and causing misalignment between clocks on the days they are implemented.
Under the new protocol, time discrepancies that previously required a one-second jump approximately every 1.5 years will now wait until Earth time and atomic time drift apart by 3,600 seconds. At that point, a one-hour adjustment will be made. Nature reports that this shift likely won’t be needed for thousands of years, effectively pushing the issue onto future generations.
The resolution was formally introduced by Noël Dimarcq, a metrologist at the Côte d'Azur Observatory in Nice, France. "This is a historical moment, a decisive step for UTC," Dimarcq said. "We now have an international reference time scale [that is] continuous for the next millennia," he added.
Georgette Macdonald, director general of the National Research Council of Canada’s Metrology Research Centre in Halifax, Canada, stated that the decision "will ensure the continuity and relevance of UTC for centuries to come." Macdonald noted that while Canada backed the resolution, it was not supported unanimously; however, only a majority was required for it to pass.
The immediate retirement of the leap second addresses the operational difficulties caused by irregular time adjustments in digital infrastructure. By shifting to a leap hour, the frequency of these disruptive events is drastically reduced, potentially eliminating the need for such adjustments for millennia. This change aims to provide a stable, continuous reference time scale for global scientific and technological applications.
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This article was drafted with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. Company claims are reported as claims. Cover image is AI-generated.
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