The year 2015 will be one second longer to compensate for the gradual slowing of the rotation of the Earth, the world’s time experts in France have ruled.
But it is feared the “leap second”, added at midday on June 30, could cause glitches or crashes across the internet.
The extra second is needed because the Earth’s rotation is slowing by around two thousandths of a second per day and needs to catch up with atomic time.
The tiny adjustment will be made at the International Earth Rotation Service based in Paris. The last time a leap second was added, in 2012, popular websites including Reddit and LinkedIn crashed.
But Google has developed a “leap smear” technique where it gradually adds milliseconds to its system clocks.
The first leap second was before the advent of the internet in 1972, and this year will be the 26th time it has been added to clocks.
“The day of June 30 will have 86 401 seconds, instead of 86 400 seconds,” says Nick Stamatakos, of the US Naval Observatory.
The US wants to get rid of leap seconds, claiming they are disruptive, but Britain opposes abolishing them because it could spell the end of Greenwich Mean Time.
Daily Mail