A decision whether to keep a system of adding so-called leap seconds to the global time system is being considered at a meeting in Switzerland, scientists say.

More than 100 nations are represented at the Radiocommunications Assembly in Geneva to consider the future of world timekeeping, CNN reported Thursday.

The current Co-ordinated Universal Time or UTC is based on extremely accurate atomic clocks, but they are so precise they do not match the rotation of the Earth, which constantly varies due to the action of the tides and changes within the Earth's core.

To compensate, the so-called "leap seconds" have to be added or subtracted periodically to synchronize UTC to the Earth's rotation.

Many countries, including the United States and most European nations, have argued for doing away with leap seconds as being too cumbersome.

They say precise timing systems, such as those utilized by global positioning satellites, can be disrupted by the inclusion of leap seconds.

"There are many applications today that depend on precise time keeping," Peter Whibberley, a research scientist at Britain's National Physical Laboratory, said.

While leap seconds may be cumbersome, Whibberly said, some form of correction is necessary.

Without some method of adjustment, the precise time measured by atomic clocks and time according to the Earth's rotation will start to deviate more and more.

"Without a correction, eventually our clocks would show the middle of the day occurring at night," he said. "We have to have some means of making a correction but at the moment no one knows how that's going to be done."