Menu
Home Explore People Places Arts History Plants & Animals Science Life & Culture Technology
On this page
Greenwich Mean Time
Time zone of Western Europe, same as WET

Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is the local mean time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London, counted from midnight. It serves as a basis for civil time in the UK and is often used as a name for the time zone UTC+00:00. Due to Earth's uneven angular velocity and axial tilt, noon GMT rarely coincides exactly with the Sun's highest point on the Greenwich Meridian, a difference explained by the equation of time. Originally starting at noon, GMT was redefined from midnight and standardized as Universal Time. Today, GMT is synonymous with UTC in common usage but differs slightly from precise time standards. It remains widely used by UK institutions like the BBC World Service and Met Office, as well as media in Arab countries.

Related Image Collections Add Image
Profiles
1 Image
We don't have any YouTube videos related to Greenwich Mean Time yet.
We don't have any PDF documents related to Greenwich Mean Time yet.
We don't have any Books related to Greenwich Mean Time yet.
We don't have any archived web articles related to Greenwich Mean Time yet.

History

Main article: History of longitude

As the United Kingdom developed into an advanced maritime nation, British mariners kept at least one chronometer on GMT to calculate their longitude from the Greenwich meridian,14 which was considered to have longitude zero degrees, by a convention adopted in the International Meridian Conference of 1884. Synchronisation of the chronometer on GMT did not affect shipboard time, which was still solar time. But this practice, combined with mariners from other nations drawing from Nevil Maskelyne's method of lunar distances based on observations at Greenwich, led to GMT being used worldwide as a standard time independent of location. Most time zones were based upon GMT, as an offset of a number of hours (and occasionally half or quarter hours) "ahead of GMT" or "behind GMT".

Greenwich Mean Time was adopted across the island of Great Britain by the Railway Clearing House in 1847 and by almost all railway companies by the following year, from which the term railway time is derived. It was gradually adopted for other purposes, but a legal case in 1858 held "local mean time" to be the official time.15 On 14 May 1880, a letter signed by "Clerk to Justices" appeared in The Times, stating that "Greenwich time is now kept almost throughout England, but it appears that Greenwich time is not legal time. For example, our polling booths were opened, say, at 8 13 and closed at 4 13 p.m."1617 This was changed later in 1880, when Greenwich Mean Time was legally adopted throughout the island of Great Britain. GMT was adopted in the Isle of Man in 1883, in Jersey in 1898 and in Guernsey in 1913. Ireland adopted GMT in 1916, supplanting Dublin Mean Time.18 Hourly time signals from Greenwich Observatory were first broadcast by shortwave radio on 5 February 1924 at 17:30:00 UTC,19 providing a rival accurate time-source to the time ball at the Greenwich Observatory.20

The daily rotation of the Earth is irregular (see ΔT) and has a slowing trend; therefore atomic clocks constitute a much more stable timebase. On 1 January 1972, GMT as the international civil time standard was superseded by Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), maintained by an ensemble of atomic clocks around the world. Universal Time (UT), a term introduced in 1928, initially represented mean time at Greenwich determined in the traditional way to accord with the originally defined universal day; from 1 January 1956 (as decided by the International Astronomical Union in Dublin in 1955, at the initiative of William Markowitz) this "raw" form of UT was re-labelled UT0 and effectively superseded by refined forms UT1 (UT0 equalised for the effects of polar wandering)21 and UT2 (UT1 further equalised for annual seasonal variations in Earth rotation rate).

Indeed, even the Greenwich meridian itself is not quite what it used to be—defined by "the centre of the transit instrument at the Observatory at Greenwich". Although that instrument still survives in working order, it is no longer in use and now the meridian of origin of the world's longitude and time is not strictly defined in material form but from a statistical solution resulting from observations of all time-determination stations which the BIPM takes into account when co-ordinating the world's time signals. Nevertheless, the line in the old observatory's courtyard today differs no more than a few metres from that imaginary line which is now the prime meridian of the world.

— Howse, D. (1997). Greenwich time and the longitude. London: Philip Wilson.

Ambiguity in the definition of GMT

Historically, GMT has been used with two different conventions for numbering hours. The long-standing astronomical convention, dating from the work of Ptolemy, was to refer to noon as zero hours (see Julian day). This contrasted with the civil convention of referring to midnight as zero hours dating from the Roman Empire. The latter convention was adopted on and after 1 January 1925 for astronomical purposes, resulting in a discontinuity of 12 hours, or half a day. The instant that was designated as "December 31.5 GMT" in 1924 almanacs became "January 1.0 GMT" in 1925 almanacs. The term Greenwich Mean Astronomical Time (GMAT) was introduced to unambiguously refer to the previous noon-based astronomical convention for GMT.22 The more specific terms UT and UTC do not share this ambiguity, always referring to midnight as zero hours.

GMT in legislation

United Kingdom

Legally, the civil time used in the UK is called "Greenwich mean time" (without capitalisation), with an exception made for those periods when the Summer Time Act 1972 orders an hour's shift for daylight saving. The Interpretation Act 1978, section 9, provides that whenever an expression of time occurs in any Act, the time referred to shall (unless otherwise specifically stated) be held to be Greenwich mean time.23 Under subsection 23, the same rule applies to deeds and other instruments.24

During the experiment of 1968 to 1971, when the British Isles did not revert to Greenwich Mean Time during the winter, the all-year British Summer Time was called British Standard Time (BST).

In the UK, UTC+00:00 is disseminated to the general public in winter and UTC+01:00 in summer.2526

BBC radio stations broadcast the "six pips" of the Greenwich Time Signal. It is named from its original generation at the Royal Greenwich Observatory but is calibrated to UTC. If announced (such as near the start of summer time or of winter time), announcers on domestic channels declare the time as GMT or BST as appropriate. As the BBC World Service is broadcast to all time zones, the announcers use the term "Greenwich Mean Time" consistently throughout the year.

Other countries

Several countries define their local time by reference to Greenwich Mean Time.2728 Some examples are:

  • Belgium: Decrees of 1946 and 1947 set legal time as one hour ahead of GMT.29
  • Ireland: "Standard Time" (Irish: Am Caighdeánach) is defined as being one hour in advance of GMT.30 "Winter Time" (Am Geimhridh) is defined as being the same as GMT.3132
  • Canada: Interpretation Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. I-21, section 35(1). This refers to "standard time" for the several provinces, defining each in relation to "Greenwich time", but does not use the expression "Greenwich mean time". Several provinces, such as Nova Scotia (Time Definition Act. R.S., c. 469, s. 1), have their own legislation which specifically mentions either "Greenwich Mean Time" or "Greenwich mean solar time".

Time zone

Greenwich Mean Time (UTC+00:00) is defined in law as standard time in the following countries and areas, which also advance their clocks one hour to UTC+01:00 in summer.

Greenwich Mean Time is used during the summer in the following areas, which switch their clocks to UTC-01:00 during the winter months:

Greenwich Mean Time is used as standard time all year round in the following countries and areas:

See also

Notes

Sources

References

  1. "Time scales". UCO Lick. Retrieved 28 July 2018. https://www.ucolick.org/~sla/leapsecs/timescales.html#GMT ↩

  2. "What is Greenwich Mean Time?". Royal Museums Greenwich. 2021. What does GMT stand for?. Retrieved 28 October 2021. https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/greenwich-mean-time-gmt ↩

  3. "Interpretation Act 1978: Section 9", legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives, 20 July 1978, 1978 c. 30 (s. 9), retrieved 30 October 2021 https://legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1978/30/section/9/ ↩

  4. British Summer Time is defined in law as being one hour in advance of Greenwich Mean Time. /wiki/British_Summer_Time ↩

  5. The 'Prime Meridian', 0°, was originally defined as being the Greenwich meridian but is now the "IERS Reference Meridian": they are not quite the same.[4] /wiki/International_Meridian_Conference ↩

  6. There is no such thing as the "Greenwich Mean". ↩

  7. Astronomers preferred the old convention to simplify their observational data, so that each night was logged under a single calendar date. ↩

  8. McCarthy & Seidelmann 2009, p. 17. - McCarthy, Denis D; Seidelmann, P. Kenneth (2009). TIME—From Earth Rotation to Atomic Physics. Weinheim: Wiley-VCH. ISBN 9783527407804. ↩

  9. "UTC (Universal Time Coordinated)". Greenwich Mean Time. Retrieved 12 May 2023. https://greenwichmeantime.com/articles/history/utc/ ↩

  10. "Astronomical Almanac Online". Her Majesty's Nautical Almanac Office. 2020. "Glossary" s.v. Universal Time. Archived from the original on 23 February 2022. Retrieved 27 February 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20220223151156/http://asa.hmnao.com/SecM/Glossary.html#ut ↩

  11. "Coordinated Universal Time". Lexico UK English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 14 June 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20200614012007/https://www.lexico.com/definition/coordinated_universal_time ↩

  12. See Leap second and Coordinated Universal Time#Mechanism for the reasons for this. /wiki/Leap_second ↩

  13. Hilton & McCarthy 2013, pp. 231–232. - Hilton, James L; McCarthy, Dennis D. (2013). "Precession, Nutation, Polar Motion, and Earth Rotation". In Sean Urban; P. Kenneth Seidelmann (eds.). Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical Almanac (3rd ed.). Mill Valley CA: University Science Books. ↩

  14. For explanation, see History of longitude#Chronometers but simplistically, there is a 15° difference of longitude for each hour that the time of local noon differs from Greenwich noon. /wiki/History_of_longitude#Chronometers ↩

  15. Howse 1997, p. 114. - Howse, Derek (1997). Greenwich time and the longitude. London: Philip Wilson. ISBN 9780856674686. ↩

  16. CLERK TO JUSTICES. "Time, Actual And Legal". Times, London, England, 14 May 1880: 10. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 18 August 2015. http://find.galegroup.com/ttda/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=TTDA&userGroupName=qubelfast&tabID=T003&docPage=article&searchType=&docId=CS168214190&type=multipage&contentSet=LTO&version=1.0 ↩

  17. Bartky, Ian R. (2007). One Time Fits All: The Campaigns for Global Uniformity. Stanford University Press. p. 134. ISBN 978-0804756426. Retrieved 18 August 2015. 978-0804756426 ↩

  18. Myers 2007. - Myers, J. (2007). "History of legal time in Britain". Retrieved 2 September 2021. https://www.polyomino.org.uk/british-time/ ↩

  19. "Greenwich Time by Wireless— New Scheme Today". Liverpool Daily Post. 5 February 1924. p. 6. the last four seconds of the preceding minute will be heard as 'clicks' when the signal is about to be given, representing the 55th, 56th, 57th, 58th and 59th second, and the final click, which will be a little louder than the others ↩

  20. Street, Sean (2015). "Greenwich Time Signal". Historical Dictionary of British Radio. Scarecrow Press. p. 156. ↩

  21. "Universal Time (UT1) and Length of Day (LOD)". IERS. Archived from the original on 5 April 2023. Retrieved 3 May 2024. https://www.iers.org/IERS/EN/Science/EarthRotation/UT1LOD.html ↩

  22. Astronomical Supplement to the Astronomical Almanac. University Science Books. 1992. p. 76. ISBN 0-935702-68-7. 0-935702-68-7 ↩

  23. "Interpretation Act 1978: Section 9", legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives, 20 July 1978, 1978 c. 30 (s. 9), retrieved 30 October 2021 https://legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1978/30/section/9/ ↩

  24. Myers 2007. - Myers, J. (2007). "History of legal time in Britain". Retrieved 2 September 2021. https://www.polyomino.org.uk/british-time/ ↩

  25. McCarthy & Seidelmann 2009, p. 17. - McCarthy, Denis D; Seidelmann, P. Kenneth (2009). TIME—From Earth Rotation to Atomic Physics. Weinheim: Wiley-VCH. ISBN 9783527407804. ↩

  26. Howse 1997, p. 157. - Howse, Derek (1997). Greenwich time and the longitude. London: Philip Wilson. ISBN 9780856674686. ↩

  27. Dumortier, Hannelore, & Loncke (n.d.) ↩

  28. Seago, Seidelmann & Allen 2011. - Seago, J.H.; Seidelmann, P. K.; Allen, Steve (2011). "LEGISLATIVE SPECIFICATIONS FOR COORDINATING WITH UNIVERSAL TIME" (PDF). American Astronomical Society Publishing. Archived (PDF) from the original on 4 February 2005. http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/leapsecs/seago.pdf ↩

  29. Dumortier, Hannelore, & Loncke (n.d.) ↩

  30. "STANDARD TIME ACT, 1968; Section 1". Government of Ireland. http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1968/act/23/enacted/en/print.html ↩

  31. "STANDARD TIME (AMENDMENT) ACT, 1971; Section 1". Government of Ireland. http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1971/act/17/enacted/en/index.html ↩

  32. The net effect is that Ireland and the UK are in the same time zone. ↩

  33. "STANDARD TIME (AMENDMENT) ACT, 1971; Section 1". Government of Ireland. http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1971/act/17/enacted/en/index.html ↩

  34. "STANDARD TIME ACT, 1968; Section 1". Government of Ireland. http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1968/act/23/enacted/en/print.html ↩