We have just gained an extra second – without most even realizing

World
Europe

One second might not matter to most people on everyday basis, but for timekeepers and horologists it is no joke. An extra second, called the leap second, has been added at the dawn of a new year to compensate for a slowdown in the earth’s rotation.

Clocks employing the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) needed to “wait on” for one extra second in order for the rotating earth to “catch up” with it.

The phenomenon occurs because of a mismatch between different measurements of time, namely the Universal Time (also known as astronomical time or solar time) which is based on the earth’s rotation, and the Atomic Time, calculated by precise atomic clocks.

The earth’s movement around its axis, however, is not at a permanently-consistent pace and leap seconds are added to the UTC whenever the rotation occasionally lags behind.

This is the 27th time a leap second was added to clocks worldwide since 1972. The last addition took place in June 30, 2015.

The leap second will be added to clocks around the world at 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) on December 31. However, as countries sit in different time zones, the adjustments will occur at different points of the day, according to their local time’s relevance to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

Celebration of the New Year in Beijing,

Since China follows a time offset of UTC/ GMT+8, the second will be inserted at 07:59:59 Beijing Time; whereas in London the leap second was added at the last moment of the New Year countdown –making it one second longer than usual. Atomic clocks would have shown 23:59:60 before ticking forward to 00.00.00 announcing a new day and a new year.

Peter Whibberley, senior research scientist with the National Physical Laboratory in London, told the BBC that the globe needs leap seconds to “prevent civil time drifting away from Earth time.”

"Although the drift is small - taking around 1,000 years to accumulate a one-hour difference - if not corrected it would eventually result in clocks showing midday before sunrise."