Time zone

#redirectTemplate:Dated maintenance category A time zone is a region on Earth, more or less bounded by lines of longitude, that has a uniform, legally mandated standard time, usually referred to as the local time. By convention, the 24 main time zones on Earth compute their local time as an offset from UTC (see also Greenwich Mean Time). Local time in each time zone is UTC plus the current time zone offset for the location in question. In theory, the increase proceeds eastward from the eastern boundary of the UTC time zone centered on 0°, increasing by one hour for each 15°, up to the International Date Line (longitude 180°). A corresponding one hour decrease relative to UTC occurs every 15° heading westward from the western boundary of the UTC time zone, up to the International Date Line.

Introduction

Standard time zones can be defined by geometrically subdividing the Earth's spheroid into 24 lunes (wedge-shaped sections), bordered by meridians each 15° of longitude apart. The local time in neighboring zones would differ by one hour. However, political boundaries, geographical practicalities, and convenience of inhabitants can result in irregularly shaped zones. Moreover, in a few regions, half-hour or quarter-hour differences are in effect.

Before the adoption of time zones, people used local solar time. Originally this was apparent or true solar time, as shown by a sundial, and later it became mean solar time, as kept by most mechanical clocks. Mean solar time has days of equal length, but the difference between mean and apparent solar time, called the equation of time, averages to zero over a year.

The use of local solar time became increasingly awkward as railways and telecommunications improved, because clocks differed between places by an amount corresponding to the difference in their geographical longitude, which was usually not a convenient number. This problem could be solved by synchronizing the clocks in all localities, but in many places the local time would then differ markedly from the solar time to which people were accustomed. Time zones are a compromise, relaxing the complex geographic dependence while still allowing local time to approximate the mean solar time. There has been a general trend to set the boundaries of time zones west of their designated meridians in order to create a permanent daylight saving time effect. The increase in worldwide communication has further increased the need for interacting parties to communicate mutually comprehensible time references to one another. Thus, the advance of technology has both forced (rail transport) and enabled (modern timepieces) the development of arbitrary official "time."

Time zones may be adjusted seasonally into standard and daylight saving (or summer) variants. Daylight saving time zones (or summer time zones) include an offset (typically +1 hour) for daylight saving time.

Standard time zones

Time zones are based on Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), the mean solar time at longitude 0° (the Prime Meridian). The definition of GMT was recently changed – it was previously the same as UT1, a mean solar time calculated directly from the rotation of the Earth. As the rate of rotation of the Earth is not constant, the time derived from atomic clocks was adjusted to closely match UT1. In January 1972, however, the length of the second in both Greenwich Mean Time and atomic time was equalised. The readings of participating atomic clocks are averaged out to give a uniform time scale.

Because the length of the average day is very slightly longer than 86400 seconds (24 hours x 60 minutes/hour x 60 seconds/minute), leap seconds are periodically inserted into Greenwich Mean Time to make it approximate to UT1. This new time system is also called Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Leap seconds are inserted to keep UTC within 0.9 seconds of UT1. Because of the secular (long term) slowing down of the Earth's rotation, leap seconds will gradually need to be added more and more often. But on short time scales (from one year to the next) the rotation rate is irregular, so leap seconds are not added unless observations of Earth's rotation show that one is required. In this way, local times continue to correspond approximately to mean solar time, while the effects of variations in Earth's rotation rate are confined to simple step changes that can be more easily applied to the uniform time scale (International Atomic Time or TAI). All local times differ from TAI by an integral number of seconds. With the implementation of UTC, nations began to use it in the definition of their time zones. As of 2005, most but not all nations had altered the definition of local time in this way.

In England, this involved redefining Greenwich Mean Time to make it the same as UTC.^[1] British Summer Time (BST) is still one hour in advance of Greenwich Mean Time and is therefore also one hour in advance of Coordinated Universal Time. Thus Greenwich Mean Time is the local time at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich between 0100 hours GMT on the last Sunday in October and 0100 hours GMT on the last Sunday in March. Similar circumstances apply in many other places.

Looking to the future, leap seconds are considered by many to be a nuisance, and ways to abolish them are being considered. This means letting the time difference accumulate. One suggestion is to insert a "leap-hour" in about 5,000 years. For more on this discussion read leap second.

UTC

If the time is in UTC, add a "Z" directly after the time without a space. "Z" is the zone designator for the zero UTC offset. "09:30 UTC" is therefore represented as "09:30Z" or "0930Z". "14:45:15 UTC" would be "14:45:15Z" or "144515Z".

UTC time is also known as "Zulu" time, since "Zulu" is the ICAO spelling alphabet code word for "Z".