The arrival of 2006 will be delayed by a "leap" second, due to the deceleration of the Earth's self-rotation.

All the clocks in the world will be reset on midnight of December 31, 2005, based on Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), by one whole second, to keep pace with the Earth's spin.

"Since China is eight hours ahead of GMT, we will add this leap second before 8 AM on January 1," said Dou Zhong, a senior official with the National Time Service Centre.

People in the country who have shortwave radios or televisions can actually witness an extra second correction 7:59:60 being made between 7:59:59 AM and 8:00:00 AM.

It will be the 23rd leap second to be added since its introduction at the end of June 1972. And this year's leap second will be the first for seven years.

The extra second will allow the Earth to stay in sync with ultraprecise clocks, which mark time based on the vibration of atoms.

The correction is a result of the difference between International Atomic Time based on atomic clocks, and Universal Time, which is decided by the rotation of the Earth.

Universal Time changes as the speed of the earth's rotation changes, mostly due to the friction of tides raised by the Sun and Moon, astronomers said.

"The current time is actually 32 seconds behind that of 47 years ago," said Dou.

Though ordinary people will hardly be affected by the extra one second, some industries will, such as space research and global positioning systems.

Dou said domestic industries that are concerned were informed in advance. These include space and aviation, power systems, telecommunications, scientific research, earthquake monitoring and financial sectors.

However, complaints from communication engineers about the time correction are growing. They argue that it has increased difficulty of updating communication and navigation systems, as the change ultimately depends on the unpredictable slowing of the Earth's rotation, according to the American Astronomy Society (AAS).

This view has been rejected by astronomers.

Li Jing, a senior astronomer with the National Astronomical Observatories, said: "Human activities are highly dependent on the movement of the Sun and the Earth. It is necessary to adjust our time to what the Earth decides it to be."

"A difference of one second would lead a spacecraft to drop in a different place, delay our prediction of an earthquake or volcano eruption, or a failed rescue when using GPS."

Over a few decades, when the error might grow up to half a minute, lawyers and insurance companies might have disputes over whether an event occurred just before or after midnight, the AAS argued.

(China Daily December 31, 2005)