leap-seconds.list revision 280414
1275970Scy#
2275970Scy#	In the following text, the symbol '#' introduces
3275970Scy#	a comment, which continues from that symbol until
4275970Scy#	the end of the line. A plain comment line has a
5275970Scy#	whitespace character following the comment indicator.
6275970Scy#	There are also special comment lines defined below.
7275970Scy#	A special comment will always have a non-whitespace
8275970Scy#	character in column 2.
9275970Scy#
10275970Scy#	A blank line should be ignored.
11275970Scy#
12275970Scy#	The following table shows the corrections that must
13275970Scy#	be applied to compute International Atomic Time (TAI)
14275970Scy#	from the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) values that
15275970Scy#	are transmitted by almost all time services.
16275970Scy#
17275970Scy#	The first column shows an epoch as a number of seconds
18275970Scy#	since 1 January 1900, 00:00:00 (1900.0 is also used to
19275970Scy#	indicate the same epoch.) Both of these time stamp formats
20275970Scy#	ignore the complexities of the time scales that were
21275970Scy#	used before the current definition of UTC at the start
22275970Scy#	of 1972. (See note 3 below.)
23275970Scy#	The second column shows the number of seconds that
24275970Scy#	must be added to UTC to compute TAI for any timestamp
25275970Scy#	at or after that epoch. The value on each line is
26275970Scy#	valid from the indicated initial instant until the
27275970Scy#	epoch given on the next one or indefinitely into the
28275970Scy#	future if there is no next line.
29275970Scy#	(The comment on each line shows the representation of
30275970Scy#	the corresponding initial epoch in the usual
31275970Scy#	day-month-year format. The epoch always begins at
32275970Scy#	00:00:00 UTC on the indicated day. See Note 5 below.)
33275970Scy#
34275970Scy#	Important notes:
35275970Scy#
36275970Scy#	1. Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is often referred to
37275970Scy#	as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). The GMT time scale is no
38275970Scy#	longer used, and the use of GMT to designate UTC is
39275970Scy#	discouraged.
40275970Scy#
41275970Scy#	2. The UTC time scale is realized by many national
42275970Scy#	laboratories and timing centers. Each laboratory
43275970Scy#	identifies its realization with its name: Thus
44275970Scy#	UTC(NIST), UTC(USNO), etc. The differences among
45275970Scy#	these different realizations are typically on the
46275970Scy#	order of a few nanoseconds (i.e., 0.000 000 00x s)
47275970Scy#	and can be ignored for many purposes. These differences
48275970Scy#	are tabulated in Circular T, which is published monthly
49275970Scy#	by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures
50275970Scy#	(BIPM). See www.bipm.org for more information.
51275970Scy#
52275970Scy#	3. The current definition of the relationship between UTC
53275970Scy#	and TAI dates from 1 January 1972. A number of different
54275970Scy#	time scales were in use before that epoch, and it can be
55275970Scy#	quite difficult to compute precise timestamps and time
56275970Scy#	intervals in those "prehistoric" days. For more information,
57275970Scy#	consult:
58275970Scy#
59275970Scy#		The Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical
60275970Scy#		Ephemeris.
61275970Scy#	or
62275970Scy#		Terry Quinn, "The BIPM and the Accurate Measurement
63275970Scy#		of Time," Proc. of the IEEE, Vol. 79, pp. 894-905,
64275970Scy#		July, 1991.
65275970Scy#
66275970Scy#	4. The decision to insert a leap second into UTC is currently
67275970Scy#	the responsibility of the International Earth Rotation and
68275970Scy#	Reference Systems Service. (The name was changed from the
69275970Scy#	International Earth Rotation Service, but the acronym IERS
70275970Scy#	is still used.)
71275970Scy#
72275970Scy#	Leap seconds are announced by the IERS in its Bulletin C.
73275970Scy#
74275970Scy#	See www.iers.org for more details.
75275970Scy#
76275970Scy#	Every national laboratory and timing center uses the
77275970Scy#	data from the BIPM and the IERS to construct UTC(lab),
78275970Scy#	their local realization of UTC.
79275970Scy#
80275970Scy#	Although the definition also includes the possibility
81275970Scy#	of dropping seconds ("negative" leap seconds), this has
82275970Scy#	never been done and is unlikely to be necessary in the
83275970Scy#	foreseeable future.
84275970Scy#
85275970Scy#	5. If your system keeps time as the number of seconds since
86275970Scy#	some epoch (e.g., NTP timestamps), then the algorithm for
87275970Scy#	assigning a UTC time stamp to an event that happens during a positive
88275970Scy#	leap second is not well defined. The official name of that leap
89275970Scy#	second is 23:59:60, but there is no way of representing that time
90275970Scy#	in these systems.
91275970Scy#	Many systems of this type effectively stop the system clock for
92275970Scy#	one second during the leap second and use a time that is equivalent
93275970Scy#	to 23:59:59 UTC twice. For these systems, the corresponding TAI
94275970Scy#	timestamp would be obtained by advancing to the next entry in the
95275970Scy#	following table when the time equivalent to 23:59:59 UTC
96275970Scy#	is used for the second time. Thus the leap second which
97275970Scy#	occurred on 30 June 1972 at 23:59:59 UTC would have TAI
98275970Scy#	timestamps computed as follows:
99275970Scy#
100275970Scy#	...
101275970Scy#	30 June 1972 23:59:59 (2287785599, first time):	TAI= UTC + 10 seconds
102275970Scy#	30 June 1972 23:59:60 (2287785599,second time):	TAI= UTC + 11 seconds
103275970Scy#	1  July 1972 00:00:00 (2287785600)		TAI= UTC + 11 seconds
104275970Scy#	...
105275970Scy#
106275970Scy#	If your system realizes the leap second by repeating 00:00:00 UTC twice
107275970Scy#	(this is possible but not usual), then the advance to the next entry
108275970Scy#	in the table must occur the second time that a time equivalent to
109275970Scy#	00:00:00 UTC is used. Thus, using the same example as above:
110275970Scy#
111275970Scy#	...
112275970Scy#       30 June 1972 23:59:59 (2287785599):		TAI= UTC + 10 seconds
113275970Scy#       30 June 1972 23:59:60 (2287785600, first time):	TAI= UTC + 10 seconds
114275970Scy#       1  July 1972 00:00:00 (2287785600,second time):	TAI= UTC + 11 seconds
115275970Scy#	...
116275970Scy#
117275970Scy#	in both cases the use of timestamps based on TAI produces a smooth
118275970Scy#	time scale with no discontinuity in the time interval. However,
119275970Scy#	although the long-term behavior of the time scale is correct in both
120275970Scy#	methods, the second method is technically not correct because it adds
121275970Scy#	the extra second to the wrong day.
122275970Scy#
123275970Scy#	This complexity would not be needed for negative leap seconds (if they
124275970Scy#	are ever used). The UTC time would skip 23:59:59 and advance from
125275970Scy#	23:59:58 to 00:00:00 in that case. The TAI offset would decrease by
126275970Scy#	1 second at the same instant. This is a much easier situation to deal
127275970Scy#	with, since the difficulty of unambiguously representing the epoch
128275970Scy#	during the leap second does not arise.
129275970Scy#
130275970Scy#	Some systems implement leap seconds by amortizing the leap second
131275970Scy#	over the last few minutes of the day. The frequency of the local
132275970Scy#	clock is decreased (or increased) to realize the positive (or
133275970Scy#	negative) leap second. This method removes the time step described
134275970Scy#	above. Although the long-term behavior of the time scale is correct
135275970Scy#	in this case, this method introduces an error during the adjustment
136275970Scy#	period both in time and in frequency with respect to the official
137275970Scy#	definition of UTC.
138275970Scy#
139275970Scy#	Questions or comments to:
140275970Scy#		Judah Levine
141289997Sglebius#		Time and Frequency Division
142289997Sglebius#		NIST
143275970Scy#		Boulder, Colorado
144275970Scy#		Judah.Levine@nist.gov
145275970Scy#
146275970Scy#	Last Update of leap second values:   5 January 2015
147275970Scy#
148275970Scy#	The following line shows this last update date in NTP timestamp
149275970Scy#	format. This is the date on which the most recent change to
150275970Scy#	the leap second data was added to the file. This line can
151275970Scy#	be identified by the unique pair of characters in the first two
152275970Scy#	columns as shown below.
153275970Scy#
154275970Scy#$	 3629404800
155275970Scy#
156275970Scy#	The NTP timestamps are in units of seconds since the NTP epoch,
157275970Scy#	which is 1 January 1900, 00:00:00. The Modified Julian Day number
158275970Scy#	corresponding to the NTP time stamp, X, can be computed as
159275970Scy#
160275970Scy#	X/86400 + 15020
161275970Scy#
162275970Scy#	where the first term converts seconds to days and the second
163275970Scy#	term adds the MJD corresponding to the time origin defined above.
164275970Scy#	The integer portion of the result is the integer MJD for that
165275970Scy#	day, and any remainder is the time of day, expressed as the
166275970Scy#	fraction of the day since 0 hours UTC. The conversion from day
167275970Scy#	fraction to seconds or to hours, minutes, and seconds may involve
168275970Scy#	rounding or truncation, depending on the method used in the
169275970Scy#	computation.
170275970Scy#
171275970Scy#	The data in this file will be updated periodically as new leap
172275970Scy#	seconds are announced. In addition to being entered on the line
173275970Scy#	above, the update time (in NTP format) will be added to the basic
174275970Scy#	file name leap-seconds to form the name leap-seconds.<NTP TIME>.
175275970Scy#	In addition, the generic name leap-seconds.list will always point to
176275970Scy#	the most recent version of the file.
177275970Scy#
178275970Scy#	This update procedure will be performed only when a new leap second
179275970Scy#	is announced.
180275970Scy#
181275970Scy#	The following entry specifies the expiration date of the data
182275970Scy#	in this file in units of seconds since the origin at the instant
183275970Scy#	1 January 1900, 00:00:00. This expiration date will be changed
184275970Scy#	at least twice per year whether or not a new leap second is
185275970Scy#	announced. These semi-annual changes will be made no later
186275970Scy#	than 1 June and 1 December of each year to indicate what
187275970Scy#	action (if any) is to be taken on 30 June and 31 December,
188275970Scy#	respectively. (These are the customary effective dates for new
189275970Scy#	leap seconds.) This expiration date will be identified by a
190275970Scy#	unique pair of characters in columns 1 and 2 as shown below.
191275970Scy#	In the unlikely event that a leap second is announced with an
192275970Scy#	effective date other than 30 June or 31 December, then this
193275970Scy#	file will be edited to include that leap second as soon as it is
194275970Scy#	announced or at least one month before the effective date
195275970Scy#	(whichever is later).
196275970Scy#	If an announcement by the IERS specifies that no leap second is
197275970Scy#	scheduled, then only the expiration date of the file will
198275970Scy#	be advanced to show that the information in the file is still
199275970Scy#	current -- the update time stamp, the data and the name of the file
200275970Scy#	will not change.
201275970Scy#
202275970Scy#	Updated through IERS Bulletin C49
203275970Scy#	File expires on:  28 December 2015
204275970Scy#
205275970Scy#@	3660249600
206#
2072272060800	10	# 1 Jan 1972
2082287785600	11	# 1 Jul 1972
2092303683200	12	# 1 Jan 1973
2102335219200	13	# 1 Jan 1974
2112366755200	14	# 1 Jan 1975
2122398291200	15	# 1 Jan 1976
2132429913600	16	# 1 Jan 1977
2142461449600	17	# 1 Jan 1978
2152492985600	18	# 1 Jan 1979
2162524521600	19	# 1 Jan 1980
2172571782400	20	# 1 Jul 1981
2182603318400	21	# 1 Jul 1982
2192634854400	22	# 1 Jul 1983
2202698012800	23	# 1 Jul 1985
2212776982400	24	# 1 Jan 1988
2222840140800	25	# 1 Jan 1990
2232871676800	26	# 1 Jan 1991
2242918937600	27	# 1 Jul 1992
2252950473600	28	# 1 Jul 1993
2262982009600	29	# 1 Jul 1994
2273029443200	30	# 1 Jan 1996
2283076704000	31	# 1 Jul 1997
2293124137600	32	# 1 Jan 1999
2303345062400	33	# 1 Jan 2006
2313439756800	34	# 1 Jan 2009
2323550089600	35	# 1 Jul 2012
2333644697600	36	# 1 Jul 2015
234#
235#	the following special comment contains the
236#	hash value of the data in this file computed
237#	use the secure hash algorithm as specified
238#	by FIPS 180-1. See the files in ~/pub/sha for
239#	the details of how this hash value is
240#	computed. Note that the hash computation
241#	ignores comments and whitespace characters
242#	in data lines. It includes the NTP values
243#	of both the last modification time and the
244#	expiration time of the file, but not the
245#	white space on those lines.
246#	the hash line is also ignored in the
247#	computation.
248#
249#h	45e70fa7 a9df2033 f4a49ab0 ec648273 7b6c22c
250