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A Proposal to Change the Leap-Second Adjustments to UTC
Version 1
: Received: 1 June 2024 / Approved: 3 June 2024 / Online: 3 June 2024 (08:01:18 CEST)
How to cite: Levine, J. A Proposal to Change the Leap-Second Adjustments to UTC. Preprints 2024, 2024060043. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202406.0043.v1 Levine, J. A Proposal to Change the Leap-Second Adjustments to UTC. Preprints 2024, 2024060043. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202406.0043.v1
Abstract
The definition of UTC in 1972 balanced the needs of the time and frequency community for a universal time scale that was traceable to the definition of frequency in the SI system of units with the needs of the astronomical community for a time scale that was closely linked to UT1, a time scale related to the rotation of Earth. The balance between these two considerations has changed very significantly since 1972, and there is widespread agreement that the method of relating UTC to UT1 should be changed by increasing the maximum tolerance between the two scales to more than the current limit of 0.9 s. I propose to realize this decision by means of an algorithmic adjustment process based on the variation in the length of the day over the previous centuries. I use these historical data to extrapolate the length of the day for a century into the future, and to compute a periodic rate adjustment to UTC based on this extrapolation. The adjustment process will not use time steps. The magnitude of the periodic rate adjustment will be re-considered every century, but the basic adjustment algorithm will not change. I suggest a maximum tolerance between UT1 and UTC that is large enough to absorb the irregular and unpredictable variations in the length of the day with respect to the long-term average increase in this value but plays no role in determining the parameters of the adjustment process that is proposed. I also propose that the adjustment be implemented at 12 UTC on 1 January since that is closest to a universal holiday in all time zones.
Keywords
Coordinated Universal Time; Leap seconds; UT1; UTC
Subject
Physical Sciences, Atomic and Molecular Physics
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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