[ntp:questions] Re: Bulletin C 28 -- NO positive leap second at the end of December 2004

Steve Allen sla at ucolick.org
Thu Oct 14 07:35:54 UTC 2004


Terje Mathisen <terje.mathisen at hda.hydro.com> wrote in message news:<ckhf1r$jgd$1 at osl016lin.hda.hydro.com>...
> Even worse, afaik it must have speeded up, otherwise it would have kept 
> on dropping seconds at approximately the old rate.

Yes, the earth's rotation has been accelerating for most of the
interval since 1972.  It is coincidence that this happens to
match the inception of leap seconds.  For a plot see
http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/leapsecs/dutc.html#atomic.png
The current rate of rotation is roughly what it was way back
in 1900.



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