leap-seconds.list revision 255902
1255902Sedwin#
2255902Sedwin#	In the following text, the symbol '#' introduces
3255902Sedwin#	a comment, which continues from that symbol until 
4255902Sedwin#	the end of the line. A plain comment line has a
5255902Sedwin#	whitespace character following the comment indicator.
6255902Sedwin#	There are also special comment lines defined below. 
7255902Sedwin#	A special comment will always have a non-whitespace 
8255902Sedwin#	character in column 2.
9255902Sedwin#
10255902Sedwin#	A blank line should be ignored.
11255902Sedwin#
12255902Sedwin#	The following table shows the corrections that must
13255902Sedwin#	be applied to compute International Atomic Time (TAI)
14255902Sedwin#	from the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) values that
15255902Sedwin#	are transmitted by almost all time services.
16255902Sedwin#
17255902Sedwin#	The first column shows an epoch as a number of seconds
18255902Sedwin#	since 1900.0 and the second column shows the number of
19255902Sedwin#	seconds that must be added to UTC to compute TAI for
20255902Sedwin#	any timestamp at or after that epoch. The value on 
21255902Sedwin#	each line is valid from the indicated initial instant
22255902Sedwin#	until the epoch given on the next one or indefinitely 
23255902Sedwin#	into the future if there is no next line.
24255902Sedwin#	(The comment on each line shows the representation of
25255902Sedwin#	the corresponding initial epoch in the usual 
26255902Sedwin#	day-month-year format. The epoch always begins at
27255902Sedwin#	00:00:00 UTC on the indicated day. See Note 5 below.)
28255902Sedwin#	
29255902Sedwin#	Important notes:
30255902Sedwin#
31255902Sedwin#	1. Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is often referred to
32255902Sedwin#	as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). The GMT time scale is no
33255902Sedwin#	longer used, and the use of GMT to designate UTC is
34255902Sedwin#	discouraged.
35255902Sedwin#
36255902Sedwin#	2. The UTC time scale is realized by many national 
37255902Sedwin#	laboratories and timing centers. Each laboratory
38255902Sedwin#	identifies its realization with its name: Thus
39255902Sedwin#	UTC(NIST), UTC(USNO), etc. The differences among
40255902Sedwin#	these different realizations are typically on the
41255902Sedwin#	order of a few nanoseconds (i.e., 0.000 000 00x s)
42255902Sedwin#	and can be ignored for many purposes. These differences
43255902Sedwin#	are tabulated in Circular T, which is published monthly
44255902Sedwin#	by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures
45255902Sedwin#	(BIPM). See www.bipm.fr for more information.
46255902Sedwin#
47255902Sedwin#	3. The current defintion of the relationship between UTC 
48255902Sedwin#	and TAI dates from 1 January 1972. A number of different 
49255902Sedwin#	time scales were in use before than epoch, and it can be 
50255902Sedwin#	quite difficult to compute precise timestamps and time 
51255902Sedwin#	intervals in those "prehistoric" days. For more information,
52255902Sedwin#	consult:
53255902Sedwin#
54255902Sedwin#		The Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical
55255902Sedwin#		Ephemeris.
56255902Sedwin#	or
57255902Sedwin#		Terry Quinn, "The BIPM and the Accurate Measurement
58255902Sedwin#		of Time," Proc. of the IEEE, Vol. 79, pp. 894-905,
59255902Sedwin#		July, 1991.
60255902Sedwin#
61255902Sedwin#	4.  The insertion of leap seconds into UTC is currently the
62255902Sedwin#	responsibility of the International Earth Rotation Service,
63255902Sedwin#	which is located at the Paris Observatory: 
64255902Sedwin#
65255902Sedwin#	Central Bureau of IERS
66255902Sedwin#	61, Avenue de l'Observatoire
67255902Sedwin#	75014 Paris, France.
68255902Sedwin#
69255902Sedwin#	Leap seconds are announced by the IERS in its Bulletin C
70255902Sedwin#
71255902Sedwin#	See hpiers.obspm.fr or www.iers.org for more details.
72255902Sedwin#
73255902Sedwin#	All national laboratories and timing centers use the
74255902Sedwin#	data from the BIPM and the IERS to construct their
75255902Sedwin#	local realizations of UTC.
76255902Sedwin#
77255902Sedwin#	Although the definition also includes the possibility
78255902Sedwin#	of dropping seconds ("negative" leap seconds), this has 
79255902Sedwin#	never been done and is unlikely to be necessary in the 
80255902Sedwin#	foreseeable future.
81255902Sedwin#
82255902Sedwin#	5. If your system keeps time as the number of seconds since
83255902Sedwin#	some epoch (e.g., NTP timestamps), then the algorithm for
84255902Sedwin#	assigning a UTC time stamp to an event that happens during a positive
85255902Sedwin#	leap second is not well defined. The official name of that leap 
86255902Sedwin#	second is 23:59:60, but there is no way of representing that time 
87255902Sedwin#	in these systems. 
88255902Sedwin#	Many systems of this type effectively stop the system clock for 
89255902Sedwin#	one second during the leap second and use a time that is equivalent 
90255902Sedwin#	to 23:59:59 UTC twice. For these systems, the corresponding TAI 
91255902Sedwin#	timestamp would be obtained by advancing to the next entry in the
92255902Sedwin#	following table when the time equivalent to 23:59:59 UTC
93255902Sedwin#	is used for the second time. Thus the leap second which
94255902Sedwin#	occurred on 30 June 1972 at 23:59:59 UTC would have TAI
95255902Sedwin#	timestamps computed as follows:
96255902Sedwin#
97255902Sedwin#	...
98255902Sedwin#	30 June 1972 23:59:59 (2287785599, first time):	TAI= UTC + 10 seconds
99255902Sedwin#	30 June 1972 23:59:60 (2287785599,second time):	TAI= UTC + 11 seconds
100255902Sedwin#	1  July 1972 00:00:00 (2287785600)		TAI= UTC + 11 seconds
101255902Sedwin#	...
102255902Sedwin#
103255902Sedwin#	If your system realizes the leap second by repeating 00:00:00 UTC twice
104255902Sedwin#	(this is possible but not usual), then the advance to the next entry
105255902Sedwin#	in the table must occur the second time that a time equivlent to 
106255902Sedwin#	00:00:00 UTC is used. Thus, using the same example as above:
107255902Sedwin#
108255902Sedwin#	...
109255902Sedwin#       30 June 1972 23:59:59 (2287785599):		TAI= UTC + 10 seconds
110255902Sedwin#       30 June 1972 23:59:60 (2287785600, first time):	TAI= UTC + 10 seconds
111255902Sedwin#       1  July 1972 00:00:00 (2287785600,second time):	TAI= UTC + 11 seconds
112255902Sedwin#	...
113255902Sedwin#
114255902Sedwin#	in both cases the use of timestamps based on TAI produces a smooth
115255902Sedwin#	time scale with no discontinuity in the time interval.
116255902Sedwin#
117255902Sedwin#	This complexity would not be needed for negative leap seconds (if they 
118255902Sedwin#	are ever used). The UTC time would skip 23:59:59 and advance from 
119255902Sedwin#	23:59:58 to 00:00:00 in that case.  The TAI offset would decrease by 
120255902Sedwin#	1 second at the same instant.  This is a much easier situation to deal 
121255902Sedwin#	with, since the difficulty of unambiguously representing the epoch 
122255902Sedwin#	during the leap second does not arise.
123255902Sedwin#
124255902Sedwin#	Questions or comments to:
125255902Sedwin#		Judah Levine
126255902Sedwin#		Time and Frequency Division
127255902Sedwin#		NIST
128255902Sedwin#		Boulder, Colorado
129255902Sedwin#		jlevine@boulder.nist.gov
130255902Sedwin#
131255902Sedwin#	Last Update of leap second values:   11 January 2012
132255902Sedwin#
133255902Sedwin#	The following line shows this last update date in NTP timestamp 
134255902Sedwin#	format. This is the date on which the most recent change to
135255902Sedwin#	the leap second data was added to the file. This line can
136255902Sedwin#	be identified by the unique pair of characters in the first two 
137255902Sedwin#	columns as shown below.
138255902Sedwin#
139255902Sedwin#$	 3535228800
140255902Sedwin#
141255902Sedwin#	The NTP timestamps are in units of seconds since the NTP epoch,
142255902Sedwin#	which is 1900.0. The Modified Julian Day number corresponding
143255902Sedwin#	to the NTP time stamp, X, can be computed as 
144255902Sedwin#
145255902Sedwin#	X/86400 + 15020
146255902Sedwin#
147255902Sedwin#	where the first term converts seconds to days and the second 
148255902Sedwin#	term adds the MJD corresponding to 1900.0. The integer portion
149255902Sedwin#	of the result is the integer MJD for that day, and any remainder
150255902Sedwin#	is the time of day, expressed as the fraction of the day since 0 
151255902Sedwin#	hours UTC. The conversion from day fraction to seconds or to
152255902Sedwin#	hours, minutes, and seconds may involve rounding or truncation,
153255902Sedwin#	depending on the method used in the computation.
154255902Sedwin#
155255902Sedwin#	The data in this file will be updated periodically as new leap 
156255902Sedwin#	seconds are announced. In addition to being entered on the line
157255902Sedwin#	above, the update time (in NTP format) will be added to the basic 
158255902Sedwin#	file name leap-seconds to form the name leap-seconds.<NTP TIME>.
159255902Sedwin#	In addition, the generic name leap-seconds.list will always point to 
160255902Sedwin#	the most recent version of the file.
161255902Sedwin#
162255902Sedwin#	This update procedure will be performed only when a new leap second
163255902Sedwin#	is announced. 
164255902Sedwin#
165255902Sedwin#	The following entry specifies the expiration date of the data
166255902Sedwin#	in this file in units of seconds since 1900.0.  This expiration date 
167255902Sedwin#	will be changed at least twice per year whether or not a new leap 
168255902Sedwin#	second is announced. These semi-annual changes will be made no
169255902Sedwin#	later than 1 June and 1 December of each year to indicate what
170255902Sedwin#	action (if any) is to be taken on 30 June and 31 December, 
171255902Sedwin#	respectively. (These are the customary effective dates for new
172255902Sedwin#	leap seconds.) This expiration date will be identified by a
173255902Sedwin#	unique pair of characters in columns 1 and 2 as shown below.
174255902Sedwin#	In the unlikely event that a leap second is announced with an 
175255902Sedwin#	effective date other than 30 June or 31 December, then this
176255902Sedwin#	file will be edited to include that leap second as soon as it is
177255902Sedwin#	announced or at least one month before the effective date
178255902Sedwin#	(whichever is later). 
179255902Sedwin#	If an announcement by the IERS specifies that no leap second is 
180255902Sedwin#	scheduled, then only the expiration date of the file will 
181255902Sedwin#	be advanced to show that the information in the file is still
182255902Sedwin#	current -- the update time stamp, the data and the name of the file 
183255902Sedwin#	will not change.
184255902Sedwin#
185255902Sedwin#	Updated through IERS Bulletin C46
186255902Sedwin#	File expires on:  28 June 2014
187255902Sedwin#
188255902Sedwin#@	3612902400
189255902Sedwin#
190255902Sedwin2272060800	10	# 1 Jan 1972
191255902Sedwin2287785600	11	# 1 Jul 1972
192255902Sedwin2303683200	12	# 1 Jan 1973
193255902Sedwin2335219200	13	# 1 Jan 1974
194255902Sedwin2366755200	14	# 1 Jan 1975
195255902Sedwin2398291200	15	# 1 Jan 1976
196255902Sedwin2429913600	16	# 1 Jan 1977
197255902Sedwin2461449600	17	# 1 Jan 1978
198255902Sedwin2492985600	18	# 1 Jan 1979
199255902Sedwin2524521600	19	# 1 Jan 1980
200255902Sedwin2571782400	20	# 1 Jul 1981
201255902Sedwin2603318400	21	# 1 Jul 1982
202255902Sedwin2634854400	22	# 1 Jul 1983
203255902Sedwin2698012800	23	# 1 Jul 1985
204255902Sedwin2776982400	24	# 1 Jan 1988
205255902Sedwin2840140800	25	# 1 Jan 1990
206255902Sedwin2871676800	26	# 1 Jan 1991
207255902Sedwin2918937600	27	# 1 Jul 1992
208255902Sedwin2950473600	28	# 1 Jul 1993
209255902Sedwin2982009600	29	# 1 Jul 1994
210255902Sedwin3029443200	30	# 1 Jan 1996
211255902Sedwin3076704000	31	# 1 Jul 1997
212255902Sedwin3124137600	32	# 1 Jan 1999
213255902Sedwin3345062400	33	# 1 Jan 2006
214255902Sedwin3439756800	34	# 1 Jan 2009
215255902Sedwin3550089600	35	# 1 Jul 2012
216255902Sedwin#
217255902Sedwin#	the following special comment contains the
218255902Sedwin#	hash value of the data in this file computed
219255902Sedwin#	use the secure hash algorithm as specified
220255902Sedwin#	by FIPS 180-1. See the files in ~/pub/sha for
221255902Sedwin#	the details of how this hash value is
222255902Sedwin#	computed. Note that the hash computation
223255902Sedwin#	ignores comments and whitespace characters
224255902Sedwin#	in data lines. It includes the NTP values
225255902Sedwin#	of both the last modification time and the 
226255902Sedwin#	expiration time of the file, but not the
227255902Sedwin#	white space on those lines.
228255902Sedwin#	the hash line is also ignored in the
229255902Sedwin#	computation.
230255902Sedwin#
231255902Sedwin#h	1151a8f e85a5069 9000fcdb 3d5e5365 1d505b37
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