Timekeepers bring forward end of leap seconds to next May
The International Bureau of Weights and Measures has voted to bring forward the end of leap seconds, with the change due to take effect on 20 May next year. Leap seconds have occasionally been added to make atomic time track the Earth’s irregular rotation; ending them is intended to reduce the risk of failures in systems that depend on precise timekeeping.
The change was previously planned for 2035, but shifts in Earth’s rotation could soon require a leap second to be subtracted for the first time, raising concerns about the effect on critical infrastructure. Past leap-second additions have coincided with outages at platforms including Reddit and LinkedIn, and major technology companies have backed scrapping the system. Timekeepers will instead let atomic and astronomical time gradually diverge, using a “leap hour” only after roughly 3,000 years.
- Leap seconds are due to end on 20 May next year.
- The change aims to reduce risks to time-dependent infrastructure.
- A leap hour is not expected for around 3,000 years.
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Originally published by The Verge as “Time is a-changin’: say goodbye to the leap second”.