New era in world time setting: The leap second crisis that crashed computer systems has been shelved

In the world of international metrology, IT infrastructures and global time standards, a historic decision was made regarding Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) protocols, which have been implemented since 1972. At the 28th General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM), held near Paris, France, member countries adopted a radical change in the global time scale.

Jumps of 1 second, added to the official time period on average every 1.5 years due to the irregular rotation of the Earth, were causing huge crises in global information networks, telecommunications infrastructures and power grids.

In 2012, the popular social media platform Reddit crashed because the different software developed could not process the added 1 second simultaneously, and the reservation systems of the Australian airline company Qantas were locked and thousands of passengers were stranded at the airports. The system, which was previously planned to be phased out by 2035, was immediately terminated due to new risks that have emerged recently.

The main factor that pushed timekeepers and scientists to make urgent decisions was the recent acceleration of the Earth's rotation around its axis. Researchers have determined that in the near future, we will be faced with a "negative leap second" situation that will require subtracting 1 second from the time period for the first time in history, instead of adding 1 second to the official time.

In order to prevent unknown crises that this second subtraction process, which has never been tested before in digital infrastructures and satellite systems, CGPM delegates decided to immediately stop the system.

According to the newly adopted protocol, small deviations between atomic clocks and the Earth's natural rotation will no longer be corrected every year. The difference between the two time systems will be expected to widen by exactly 1 hour (3,600 seconds), and a one-time "leap time" adjustment will be made at this stage.

Metrologists report that it will take thousands of years for Earth time and atomic clocks to reach a 1-hour deviation, so that information systems will have an uninterrupted and error-free reference time scale for the next thousand years. It remains unclear how Russia, which opposes the decision, will adapt its GLONASS satellite navigation infrastructure, which works with seconds integration, unlike GPS and Galileo, to the new system.