According to a new article from AP News, timekeeping scientists are recommending a novel adjustment to the world's timekeeping systems to account for the impacts of climate change on the Earth's rotation. The proposed change entails deleting a leap second from atomic clocks, which continue to be the gold standard for timekeeping and contribute to a highly precise understanding of time around the world. If the idea goes ahead, it will be the first time in history that a second is withdrawn from our clocks rather than added.
Since the early 1970s, it has been usual practice to add a leap second to accommodate for the fact that astronomical time is 2.5 milliseconds slower than atomic time. Between 1972 and 2016, the earth's rotation rate slowed, adding a total of 27 seconds. Over time, the rate of slowing has reduced, and forecasts indicate that the shift in mass at the earth's poles will necessitate a negative leap-second adjustment as early as 2026.
While the change in the Earth's rotation is incredibly slow and invisible to us, it has substantial ramifications for systems that rely on exact timekeeping, such as GPS satellites and financial transactions, particularly those that use astronomical time (rather than atomic time). Beyond the actual implications of a negative leap second and the ever-increasing concerns about global warming, Seth Borenstein's story is an intriguing look at the sometimes contentious relationship between atomic timekeeping and our ability to measure the passage of time.
You can check out the full story here.