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Official English Abbreviation for German Time Zone
by Markus Kuhn July 12, 1996

July 12, 1996

A few weeks ago, we had a lengthy discussion in comp.std.internat initiated by Peter Hullah <Peter.Hullah(a)eurocontrol.fr> about the question, weather the abbreviation MET for "Middle European Time", which is used on many Unix systems, should not more correctly be replaced by CET for "Central European Time". It was argued that "Central Europe" is the common English term used for the geographic region in which Germany and its neighbor countries are located and that CET is clearly more often used in the media than MET. One argument for MET was that the official German names for this time zone are Mitteleuropäische Zeit (MEZ) = UTC+01:00 Mitteleuropäische Sommerzeit (MESZ) = UTC+02:00 as defined in the German Time Act (Gesetz über die Zeitbestimmung (ZeitG), 1978-07-25, Bundesgesetzblatt, Jahrgang 1978, Teil I, S. 1110-1111). The abbreviation MET looks very similar to MEZ and abbreviations used in other European countries. In order to get an official input to this discussion, I wrote a few days ago a letter to the German Federal Physical-Technical Institution Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) Laboratorium 4.41 "Zeiteinheit" Postfach 3345 D-38023 Braunschweig phone: +49 531 592-0 Together with a lot of very interesting literature about the German time standard and the DCF77 long wave time signal transmitter, I received today an answer letter from Dr. Peter Hetzel, head of the PTB department for time and frequency transmission. He explained that the PTB translates MEZ and MESZ into English as Central European Time (CET) = UTC+01:00 Central European Summer Time (CEST) = UTC+02:00 Considering that PTB is the official keeper of the German time and operates the most precise clock in Europe, I guess this is the most official answer we can get. I therefore suggest to change in the Olson time zone package tables and in similar software the names "MET" and "MET DST" to "CET" and "CEST". The term "Daylight Saving Time (DST)" seems to be anyway very U.S. specific as "Summer Time" seems to be the term commonly used in England. The old abbreviations should of course be kept as aliases. Markus

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tzdata96i.tar.gz
by ado July 1, 1996

July 1, 1996

The file tzdata96i.tar.gz is now available by anonymous ftp from elsie.nci.nih.gov (165.112.73.1): -rw-r--r-- 1 ado 75839 Jul 1 18:13 tzdata96i.tar.gz This incorporates the "northamerica" and "europe" changes circulated a few weeks back by Paul Eggert. --ado

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Re: What about Antarctica?
by Antoine Leca June 28, 1996

June 28, 1996

Chris Carrier wrote: > ... > > Any stations observe seasonal time changes? (A thought; could some stations > advance time in the austral WINTER, to keep the same time relationship as > their north-hemisphere mother country?) > Paul Eggert wrote: > ... > > I'll write up proposed entries for the antarctica file. A friend of mine has being for an hour and a half to Amsterdam Island (one of the French South Territories). I have ask him what were the timezone used there. For the timezone itself, he's not sure. French atlas and the telephone diary report Crozet at UTC+ For DST, he is *sure* there isn't any DST in the islands (in 1986). In 1986, the population were (none of them indigenous, as indicated ;-) "Hivernage" Summer Name of base Position (Winter) ------------------------------------------------------------------- Kerguelen 80 120 Port-aux-Français 49S 70E Crozet 36 50 47S 63E Amsterdam 36 50 Martin-Viviès 37S 78E Saint-Paul : inhabited (since 1927 if I remind well) 38S 78E BTW, this islands are administred from Reunion Island and aren't very far in the southern hemisphere. As no-one ever uses an entry for them, it appears more naturally to me to place them in the Indian/ tree if you decide to create an entry. And remember that while this territory is named "Terres Australes et Antartiques Françaises" by the French (which can be translated to French Southern and Antartic Lands, as you mention in the file), but is named "French Southern Territories" in English and I mean at an international level, since the claims over Antartica are generally not accepted. Adelie Land (on Antartica continent 67S 140E): ? I have no information I know only there is a at least base (one named Dumont-d'Urville and perhaps another named Paul-Emile-Victor). Please tell me know if more information is requested. Antoine LECA (Desktop software support -- RENAULT)

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What about Antarctica?
by Chris Carrier June 27, 1996

June 27, 1996

Peter.Hullah(a)eurocontrol.fr wrote: >And just for the fun: What about Antartica!!! What about Antarctica? Here is what I know, and some questions I have that I wonder if anyone can answer: I remember reading in a book dated 1973 that all interior stations (didn't mention how that was defined) kept "New Zealand time." Siple, the first commander of the South Pole station, stated that he would have liked to have kept GMT at the station, but that he found it more convenient to keep GMT+12 as supplies for the station were coming from McMurdo Sound, which was on GMT+12 because New Zealand was on GMT+12 all year at that time (1957). (Source: Siple's book 90 degrees SOUTH.) Admiral Byrd maintained "180th meridian time" at Little America, which would have been about a half hour slow on LMT; it is unknown if he meant GMT plus or minus 12 (can anyone enlighten us). In the winter of 1934, when he was at Advance Base, (he wrote the book ALONE based on his experiences there during a polar winter, including almost dying of carbon monoxide poisoning) he stated that he was "experimenting with moonlight saving" by putting his time forward 2 hours; don't know if this was GMT+14 or GMT-10. Byrd Station, which operated from the late 1950s until the early 1970s, was located at 80S, 120W and operated on CST all year; double summer time. Questions: Does McMurdo and Pole Station run on GMT+12 all year, GMT+13 all year (the time in New Zealand in summer) or switch from +12 to +13 as New Zealand? If the latter, don't people at the SP feel kind of silly about seasonal time changes in a place where daylight lasts 6 months, (nautical) twilight a month on each end, and 4 months of darkness? Do "all interior stations keep New Zealand time" presently, as was claimed by the author of that book I read (author and title forgotten) back in 1973? If so, when was this convention adopted? Any stations observe seasonal time changes? (A thought; could some stations advance time in the austral WINTER, to keep the same time relationship as their north-hemisphere mother country?) Any stations on a local time that could be considered weird, such as a time standard >1 hour fast or >30 minutes slow on LMT? Chris Carrier

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Bethel, Alaska time zone history.
by sbowling＠gi.alaska.edu June 25, 1996

June 25, 1996

I am trying to work out time of obsevation corrections for a number of climate stations in Alaska. This requires that I know the time zone, as well as the time of day that observations were made, for each point in the station's history. I now have most of the Alaska stations straight, though I am a little nervous about the boundary between the Yukon and Pacific time zones prior to the 1950's. Bethel, however, is giving me a real problem. The station is located almost on the boundary between what was (prior to 1983) the boundary between the Bering and Alaska/Hawaii time zones, and the information I have (not much) suggests that it may have switched back and forth. Does anyone have any information on this? Sue Ann Bowling Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks URL: http://climate.gi.alaska.edu/Bowling/Bowling.html

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Inuvik time
by Chris Carrier June 24, 1996

June 24, 1996

As per a request from someone last week, I decided to check my information concerning the time zoning for Inuvik, NWT Canada. I have distinct memory of Inuvik being in the Mountain zone in 1974, and of a phone call to the airport there around 1979-80 where they said they were on MT but had been on PT but had changed to MT, and when I asked why they said that the main reason was that they wanted to be on the same time as Edmonton for commercial reasons. I would place the phone call was in May, because both the US and the NWT were on daylight time then and I asked for the time of sunrise and sunset, and was quoted a time of sunrise and sunset consonant with MDT (about 3 hours ahead of Inuvik's LMT) and a length of daylight of about 19 hours (sunrise at 05:?? and sunset at 00:??). The only written source I have on hand is the Nautical Almanac standard time charts from the early 60s to the late 80s, a rather unreliable source because the Almanac is printed >2 years in advance; for example, the charts have the US on daylight time during all of the 1974-5 winter when we were not; and the 1987 Almanac, in which the time chart is stated as "corrected to September 1984" has the UK ending BST on October 11 when in fact it ended October 25. (I believe that the UK and the rest of the EC had a deal to synchronize the end of summer time on the second Sunday in October in 1984-6, but that this deal fell apart and the UK continued to use summer time in October and the rest of the EC didn't.) The 1972 Almanac with its standard time chart "corrected to April 1970" states that Inuvik would have been on PT, being in "Canada, NWT west of 120" as well as several editions previous. The 1973 Almanac "corrected to September 1970" has Inuvik on MT as well as do all future editions, as part of "Canada, NWT west of 102". So "recent" to the two people I talked with at the airport could have referred to 1970, and the implication from the Almanac would be that the change from PT to MT would have been on the last Sunday in April of that year, and that my own recollection of Inuvik being on PT for a time during the mid-late 70s after being on MT in 1974 is wrong. I would, however, take Whitman and/or Shanks word on the matter before I would take the Almanac's due to its lead time problem. Is/was there a newspaper in Inuvik in those years? Examination of sunrise/sunset times, especially in February, March, April and November, would be of interest. Anyhow, those are my own recollections/info... Chris Carrier

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Re: Time zone codes
by Antoine Leca June 20, 1996

June 20, 1996

Gwillim Law 919-852-4294 wrote a very interesting (to me) post: > [snipped; see the original post] > > Note 3: > > A four-letter time zone code could be formed as follows: > > Letters 1-2 = ISO 3166 country code > Letter 3 = position of time zone within country (A=westernmost or only, > followed by B, C, D, ... moving eastward) For a ethic point of view, I prefer going on the other way, because it follows the sun. But it's only a point of view. > Letter 4 = X for standard time, Y for DST (summer time), Z for standard > time or DST depending on which is in force > > Using this scheme, and bearing in mind that the United States has six > time zones (Hawaii-Aleutian, Alaska, Pacific, Mountain, Central, and > Eastern), we would say that New York City is in the USFZ time zone. A > particular local time in New York could be labeled, say, 9:13 USFX if it > were in the winter; 4:30 pm USFY if it were in the summer; or 17:59 USFZ > if it's not necessary to specify whether UTC-5 or UTC-4 is in force. > (This is informal usage, of course. I'm not making any assumption about > how time zone codes would interact with ISO 8601.) Since Arizona > observes Mountain Standard Time year round, its time zone could be > specified as USDX. > > This code has a few drawbacks. In some cases there would be many labels > for what is logically the same time zone (in Europe, BEAZ, NLAZ, LUAZ, > FRAZ, DEAZ, etc., would always mean the same thing, under existing > policies; You can use the same policy as the one which is used for currency (ISO4217?): use a code not for the country, but for the authority. And as EU is the authority (or a sort of, I know the reality are laws voted by locales parlaments), and as XE is already used for ECU, European Currency Unit (code XEC), we could name the EU timezones: XEA? for WET/GMT etc. (more exactly: XEAX/XEAZ for GMT and XEAY for BST/IST ;-) XEB? for MET/CET/MSZ/HEC... ;;-) XEC? for EET But then we can see immediatly a major drawback: What is the westernmost zone? For EU, it is clearly WET/GMT, as the Azores are a "ultraperipherical province" (this is an ugly translation of the French "région ultra-périphérique") like Guadeloupe or the Reunion. From the ISO3166/ISO4217 point of view, Guadeloupe is in a different part of the world, and incurred an different code (GP or XC for Caraibs/West Indies). But as Azores are part of [the] Portugal, they have to be count under the XE authority. So the Azores timezone (-0100/+0000 in summer) must be XEA?, and WET/GMT must be XEB?, etc. Even more difficult would be the case of the creation of a new timezone _not_ at the eastern point (and we all know this is not a chimera). In the first time, I was dreaming of a set of letters with fixed intervals; for not having the "westernmost" problem, the set can be biased, that is allocated from the middle af the alphabet (M). However, this don't work very good, because of the value of the interval: obviously, 1 hour isn't sufficient, and in the today use we have to use at least an 1/4 hour interval (for Chatham Is); and as far as Russia is on 13 timezones, we need at least 49 letters in the set. Pretty too much for the latin alphabet (and the devanagari either, as he counts 48 letters ;-) > likewise, Canada's CADZ would match USFZ). Conversely, there > would be a few cases where two different time zones would have the same > code. For example, in Australia, the states of Victoria and Tasmania > are both on UTC+10 with a summer time that's UTC+11, but Tasmania begins > summer time about a month before Victoria does. They would both be > AUCZ. Also, for countries with remote territories like France (with its > overseas departments Guadeloupe, Reunion, etc.), it would be doubtful > whether the time zones for those territories should be included under > the mother country: would FRAZ be used for France, or for Guadeloupe? Good argument, but wrong example. According to ISO3166:1989, the mainland ("Metropolitan") France has the code FX, so the european timezone (mine) must be FXAZ; and Guadeloupe/Martinique/Guyane (-0400 all year round) would be in GPAX/MQAX/GFAX, Reunion (+0300) in REAX, and for French Polynesia, -1000 in PFAX, -0930 in PFBX and -0900 in PFCX (etc.) > If you reply that the set of time zones for a given country should match > the territory included in the country's ISO 3166 code, I must point out > that ISO 3166 tactfully refuses to specify the extent of each country on > the map. ISO 3166 codes may not even represent disjoint territories. > > Gwillim Law | ENCOMPASS > law(a)encmail.encompass.com | 1100 Crescent Green, Suite 210 > phone: 919-852-4294 | Cary, N.C. 27511-8106 > fax: 919-852-4299 | United States of America And just for the fun: What about Antartica!!! Antoine LECA

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Re: Why is CET called MET?
by Dik.Winter＠cwi.nl June 20, 1996

June 20, 1996

> The time zone in which Germany is located is called by a German > law "Mitteleuropaeische Zeit (MET)" in winter and "Mitteleuropaeische MEZ > Sommerzeit (MESZ)" in summer. Do you have any formal reference why > "Central European Time" is any more correct than "Middle European > Time"? Of course not, but MET is perfect Dutch (Midden Europesche Tijd). So there is a very good reason to use this abbreviation ;-). > I can quote the German "Zeitgesetz" for MET, what can you quote for CET? MEZ I think. And in French it is HEC. But I think there may be an English reference to CET from the period that the British were on CET. These discussions are a bit bogus in my opinion, there is already a de-facto standard to call it MET, so why change. In the same spirit we could question the addition "DST". The term "Daylight Saving Time" is (as far as I know) truly US. Here it is called "Summer Time" in all languages that I know. dik -- dik t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj amsterdam, nederland, +31205924098 home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn amsterdam, nederland; http://www.cwi.nl/~dik/

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Re: Why is CET called MET?
by sgh＠banshee.cb.lucent.com June 19, 1996

June 19, 1996

> From: Peter Hullah <Peter.Hullah(a)eurocontrol.fr> > Organization: EUROCONTROL European Organisation for the Safety of Air > Navigation > Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 15:06:45 +0200 > > I was under the impression that the correct term was "Coordinated Universal > Time" and its abbrevation was "UTC" ("CUT" having, so I heard, been ruled > out as it's a vulgar word in Dutch!) Actually, I was told that the designation was a compromise between several European nations. It was decided that the common time reference would still be Greenwich, England (instead of some other city on the same longitude), but the compromise was that its name would be French (the French for "Universal Time Coordinated" -- I don't speak French) -- thus UTC. --- Scott G. Hall Lucent Technologies, Bell Labs, BCS

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Re: Why is CET called MET?
by Peter Hullah June 18, 1996

June 18, 1996

Markus Kuhn wrote: > > Peter Hullah <Peter.Hullah(a)eurocontrol.fr> writes: > > >Simple. "Middle European Time" is not the English translation of > >"Mitteleuropaeische Zeit", "Central European Time" is! We don't say, > >and never have said, "Middle Europe" in English. > > Ok, perhaps you are right here. What term uses the EU document in which > the summer time switching rules are announced? I have no idea, but it's quite probable that they could have used MET, having found it in some standard or other. It doesn't make the standard correct just because the EU uses it. > The official German term "Weltzeit" also does not translate into > "world time" but into "universal time" in English. Which is crazy since it has nothing to do with the universe and lots to do with the world! It strikes me as somewhat arrogant, and must really annoy the green men on their planet near alpha-centuri!! > >Just watch Sky TV, EuroSport TV, BBC Prime, or listen to Radio Luxemburg > >(if it's still on the air in English on 208m as it was "when I was a kid" > > What the TV and radio stations use does not necessarily indicate what is > correct terminology. Journalists tend to be pretty ignorant about such topics > often. They generally use what their audience is accustomed to using - there's no point in communicating with people in a way they don't understand! (It's only places like France which forbid journalists from using other than the "correct terminology" and even then, it only applies to journalists paid by the state.) In this case, their English-speaking audience talks about Romania/Bulgaria/etc being in Central Europe, not in "Middle Europe". They are not likely to take very kindly to some "international committee" changing their language for them for no apparent reason. "Correct terminology" should, at least, be based on correct usage. How would you feel if you were told that, from now on, you had to refer to "Zentraleuropa" because it was the translation of "Central Europe" which was the "correct terminology". > For example: BBC still says GMT, although the correct term has been > Universal Time (UT) since 1972 (when I was an exactly 1.00 year old kid ;-). > Astronomers have been using the term Universal Time even since a > conference in 1928. I was under the impression that the correct term was "Coordinated Universal Time" and its abbrevation was "UTC" ("CUT" having, so I heard, been ruled out as it's a vulgar word in Dutch!) Again, the BBC uses what its audience understands - GMT and BST. The French say "Heure d'hiver" and "Heure d'ete" and, when setting up computers' timezones, abbreviate them to "HIV" and "ETE". It has nothing to do with the "official name" of the time zone. On the other hand, if it had been decided to call retain the name "GMT" I can't imagine it being changed to "Greenwich Average Time" on the whim of a committee. I don't, therefore, see why such a committee has decided to rename "CET", which is perfectly good English, understood by nearly every English-speaker and has been in use for ages, to "MET" which is none of these. My original question was "Why?". I am sure that there must be a good reason for this term's being the way it is. Is "CET" a swear-word in some other language? -- Peter H.C. Hullah Technical Services mailto:Peter.Hullah@eurocontrol.fr EUROCONTROL Experimental Centre Phone: +33 1 69 88 75 49 BP 15, Rue des Bordes, Fax: +33 1 60 85 15 04 91222 BRETIGNY SUR ORGE CEDEX France

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