This is a big week for the leap second. In Geneva the ITU-R SG7 meeting is tomorrow and the WP7A meeting follows. Titles of the WP7A contributions are visible at http://www.itu.int/md/R12-WP7A.AR-C/en http://www.itu.int/md/R12-WP7A-C/en They show a document from Russia, from USA, and one from the recent URSI meeting in Beijing which may be a resolution from URSI Comm A.
The report of the chairman from the May meeting of WP7A included two documents which are aimed to be presented at WRC-15 next year. http://www.itu.int/md/R12-WP7A-C-0056/en One was a draft CPM document on WRC-15 Agenda Item 1.14 (about the future of the international time scale), and the other was an earlier draft of the US contribution for this week. During its review period the current US contribution was visible and it asserted that its content should replace the draft CPM document. Versions of the draft CPM document that have been visible included three different methods for resolving the leap second question posed in Agenda Item 1.14. A: stop leaps, possibly changing the name B: keep UTC with leaps and approve a leap-free time scale C: keep UTC with leaps, document it clearly, and maybe do something else The URSI document may be related in some way to the presentation by Matsakis in Beijing http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/papers/ts-2014/Matsakis-LeapSecondComments.URSI-2014.pdf One thing that has not been contributed to the ITU-R is the result of the IAU Working Group on the Redefinition of UTC. They rushed to prepare their report in time for the WP7A meeting earlier in the year, but the IAU never forwarded it to the ITU-R. The UTC WG report was recently linked at the bottom of http://www.iau.org/science/scientific_bodies/divisions/A/wgs/ in this URL http://astro.geo.tu-dresden.de/4DIVA/ReportOfTheIauWorkingGroupOnCoordinatedUniversalTime2014.pdf In large part the report covers the history of various IAU resolutions which led to the inception of leap seconds, so it is strange that before publishing the report the IAU prepended a disclaimer to the document. -- Steve Allen <[email protected]> WGS-84 (GPS) UCO/Lick Observatory--ISB Natural Sciences II, Room 165 Lat +36.99855 1156 High Street Voice: +1 831 459 3046 Lng -122.06015 Santa Cruz, CA 95064 http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/ Hgt +250 m _______________________________________________ LEAPSECS mailing list [email protected] https://pairlist6.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs
