The earth's rate of rotation is not uniform, and the rate of change of that rotation is not uniform, either. For instance, I believe, one of the major earthquakes recently caused a change in the earth's rotation because of conservation of angular momentum. ice cap melting may cause similar changes. So, predicting future rates and rate of change is not possible. On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 10:04 AM, Ofer Inbar <cos@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > If the main problem with leap seconds is their future > unpredictability, isn't there a compromise option between the status > quo and no more leap seconds? Couldn't they come up with a fixed > schedule for leap seconds for many centuries at a time, based on > current predictions of approximately how many will be needed each > century? > > That should be good enough to prevent real human-noticeable drift > between UTC and perceived day/night time. If a correction is needed > because current predictions turn out to be wrong, it seems that could > be done very rarely, with centuries of lead time in changes to the > schedule. Was anything like this considered at the international level? > > [ I know this is not something the IETF can decide, of course ] > -- Cos > _______________________________________________ > Ietf mailing list > Ietf@xxxxxxxx > https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf -- Clint (JOATMON) Chaplin Principal Engineer Corporate Standardization (US) SISA _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf