Scientists propose 'leap hour', to fix time system

International timekeeping experts are proposing a "leap hour" every 600 years rather than an extra second every few years.

New Year will arrive a second late this year, the 24th time since 1972, when time across the globe is adjusted to account for changes in the Earth's rotation.

The leap second will be added on to the final minute of 2008 because the planet is gradually slowing down as it spins on its axis.

The tweak will help correct the time-lag which shows up on ultra-accurate atomic clocks.

But the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), which manages leap seconds, is proposing to abolish them in favour of the leap hour.

Over hundreds of years, the universal time zone - a modern version of Greenwich Mean Time - would gradually drift east from Greenwich, reaching Paris before the "leap hour" moved it back west again. Such a move would see GMT lose its status as the zone in which local time is the same as the universal time by which clocks are set.

The proposed change, reported in New Scientist magazine, would mean Britain would have legal issues to contend with as GMT has been enshrined in law since 1880 as the standard by which national time is calculated.

Britain and China oppose the change but it is backed by the US, France, Germany, Russia, Japan and Italy.