Re: a leap second on 31 Dec 2005, and no more leap seconds after that

From: Christian Steyaert <steyaert_at_vvs.be>
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2005 22:05:38 +0200

At 15:49 12/08/2005 -0400, Greg Hennessy wrote:
>There has been an announcement of a leap second on 31 Dec 2005, and a
>sugguestion of no more leap seconds after that.

Not quite true, even not if the USWG7A proposal would be adopted. Quoting
Ken Seidelmann:

[7] Nevertheless, at the ITU-R Study Group 7 meeting in October 2004, the
USWG7A submitted a proposal to maintain a broadcast time standard called
UTC that suppresses leap-second adjustments (in favor of leap-hour
adjustments) starting 21 December 2007.

So in any case there *can* still be a leap second on July 1 2006, January 1
2007, July 1 2007. Not very likely? The leap seconds between 1991 and 1999
were only 1 year or 1.5 years apart. No leap second for 7 years after 1999
was exceptional.


         Chris
Received on Fri Aug 12 2005 - 13:12:28 PDT