Extra leap seconds due to earthquake?

From: Ian Strachan (Ian_at_ukiws.demon.co.uk)
Date: 12/29/04 

Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 09:52:22 +0000

There was a report in a UK newspaper today that the tragic undersea
earthquake in the Indian Ocean caused the earth to wobble a bit and slow
its rotation.

This may just be journalistic exaggeration, of course. However, if it
has a grain of truth, are there implications for the
internationally-agreed extra leap second or seconds that are sometimes
added to UTC at midnight on 31 December or 30 June?

On the GPS front, I think that GPS internal system time (UTC as at
January 1980 when GPS first came on line with a reduced number of
satellites) is now 13 seconds ahead of today's UTC, but of course time
corrections are automatically made so that receivers display the correct
UTC and not one 13 seconds different.

Anyway, any news on when the next leap second will be added? 

-- 
Ian Strachan
UK

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Extra leap seconds due to earthquake?
    ... > internationally-agreed extra leap second or seconds that are sometimes ... > On the GPS front, I think that GPS internal system time (UTC as at ... > satellites) is now 13 seconds ahead of today's UTC, ... It is expected that Celestial Pole offsets related to the IAU1980 Nutation ...
    (sci.geo.satellite-nav)
  • GPS CONSTELLATION STATUS -- Fri Sep 9 12:22:15 UTC 2005
    ... Scheduled Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) Time Step ... GPS will not be adjusted physically. ... Change to GPS Broadcast Navigation Message On June 2, 1995 beginning approximately 1900 UT, the GPS Master Control Station began adding data to the spare data fields in the broadcast navigation message. ...
    (sci.geo.satellite-nav)
  • GPS CONSTELLATION STATUS -- Wed Sep 28 12:06:44 UTC 2005
    ... Scheduled Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) Time Step ... GPS will not be adjusted physically. ... Change to GPS Broadcast Navigation Message On June 2, 1995 beginning approximately 1900 UT, the GPS Master Control Station began adding data to the spare data fields in the broadcast navigation message. ...
    (sci.geo.satellite-nav)
  • Re: Extra leap seconds due to earthquake?
    ... >> On the GPS front, I think that GPS internal system time (UTC as at ... >> satellites) is now 13 seconds ahead of today's UTC, ... any news on when the next leap second will be added? ... > It is expected that Celestial Pole offsets related to the IAU1980 Nutation ...
    (sci.geo.satellite-nav)
  • Re: Lep seconds
    ... Have come across requirements in MIL sat comms systems that need GPS time as ... well as UTC. ... TAI or even GPS. ... never signals leaps, NTP will deliver TAI. ...
    (comp.protocols.time.ntp)