The complete abolition of the “leap second” practice, which has been maintained since 1972 in order to equalize the Earth’s rotation speed and modern atomic clocks, is on the agenda. With the end of this practice, which causes serious disruptions in global technology, aviation and financial infrastructures, the historical link between humanity’s measurement of time and the physical movements of the planet will be severed.
According to CNN International; 69 countries that are members of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures are preparing to vote on the decision to abolish the leap second. If the proposal is accepted, the new regulation is planned to come into force as of May 2027. This process, which was previously planned to be completed gradually by 2035, was brought forward due to the risks faced by digital infrastructures. In the new model, atomic time would be allowed to gradually drift away from astronomical time, and the official measurement of time would become completely independent of the Earth’s rotation.
ADDITIONAL SECONDS TO LOCK DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE
Leap seconds have been added to clocks a total of 27 times since 1972 to close the gap between astronomical time measured by observatories and Coordinated Universal Time, which is based on precise atomic clocks. However, these interventions, which were carried out at irregular intervals and announced only six months in advance, caused global crises in digital systems operating with high precision.
While leap second, which was added in 2012, locked major social media networks and flight reservation systems, there were short-term outages in cloud service providers at the end of 2016, when it was last implemented. While the dependence on traditional astronomical time ended with the widespread use of GPS and modern navigation technologies, technology giants had long been pressing to end this practice that threatened system security.
NEVER TESTED DANGER: NEGATIVE LEAP SECONDS
The most critical factor in accelerating the process was the risk of a “negative leap second”. World; The Moon’s gravitational force does not rotate at a constant speed and wobbles due to reasons such as shifts in the planet’s core and the melting of polar ice caps due to the climate crisis. Although the planet’s rotation rate tends to slow down in the long term, it has recently exhibited a short-term acceleration.
This may lead to the necessity of subtracting one second from the hours for the first time in history, instead of adding seconds to the hours in the near future. Stating that digital systems were completely unprepared for such a second deletion process, the authorities urgently brought the decision to the agenda to prevent any possible confusion.
A HERITAGE TO NEXT GENERATIONS
With the decision to be taken, the difference between atomic time and the Earth’s rotation will be allowed to gradually widen. It is estimated that it will take more than 3 thousand years for the difference between the two time systems to reach one hour. In line with the proposal, when that day comes, future generations will decide whether to switch to a one-time “leap time” application. Thus, while today’s sensitive digital infrastructures will be protected, time measurement will be completely delivered to atomic precision.
