Due to the gradual slowdown in Earth's rotation, a team at the Paris Observatory is adding a "leap second" just before
midnight. Experts
at the International Earth Rotation and Reference System Service make
the adjustment when the planet's movement falls out of sync with atomic
clocks used to measure time.
"Today, time is constructed defined and
measured with atomic clocks" said Noel Dimarcq, director of the SYRTE
time-space reference system at the Paris Observatory. "This allows us to ensure that everyone on Earth is on the exact same time," Daily Mail quoted Dimarcq as saying.
Today's final minute (Greenwich Time), with its added second, will compensate
for the sloshing of oceanic tides on the continental shelves, which
slows Earth's rotation ever so slightly. It's been four years since a leap second has been added.
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