With the gloomy global economy, lots of people would like to see 2008 in their rearview mirrors.
But the official keepers of time — including scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder — are prolonging the year by a second.
At 4:59:59 p.m. MST today, a “leap” second will be added to bring ultra-precise atomic clocks in sync with Earth’s rotation.
Those obsessed with clock watching can witness the event by visiting just before the update and clicking on their time zone.
There they can see the clock tick off 58 seconds, 59 seconds, 60 seconds, then 00 seconds — with 60 being the leap second.
“It’s a rare occurrence” to be able to watch the correction on a computer, said Andrew Novick of NIST’s time and frequency division.
It will be the 24th second added to Coordinated Universal Time since it was first done in 1972. Novick said two “leap” seconds were added in 1972, making it the longest year in history.
Corrections have come about every 18 months, though the last leap second was added at the end of 2005. Novick said the longer gap means Earth’s slowing rotation has slowed even more.
The extra second will help bring atomic clocks to within nine-tenths of a second of the planet’s turns.
The International Earth Rotation Service, which measures Earth’s rotation, determines when time needs to leap.
Earth isn’t as stable a timekeeper as atomic clocks, which are accurate within a billionth of a second per day, Novick said.
Earth’s rotation varies about two-thousandths of a second a day because of friction from tides, snow or lack of snow on the polar ice caps, solar wind, space dust, magnetic storms, the atmosphere and even disturbances in the planet’s core.
The leap second will be added without most people being aware. Cellphones and computers automatically reset by grabbing the adjusted time signals from the Internet.
And while most of the population doesn’t sense that time and Earth are getting out of sync, satellites, power grids, broadcasters, the Global Positioning System and astronomers who are adjusting sensitive telescopes do.
As for inserting the second, Novick said it’s done with software. “We don’t have to be here pushing the button,” he said.
Ann Schrader: 303-278-3217 or aschrader@denverpost.com
