Abstract
Based on the gravity field models EGM96 and EIGEN-GL04C, the Earth’s time-dependent principal moments of inertia A, B, C are obtained, and the variable rotation of the Earth is determined. Numerical results show that A, B, and C have increasing tendencies; the tilt of the rotation axis increases 2.1×10−8 mas/yr; the third component of the rotational angular velocity, ω 3, has a decrease of 1.0×10−22 rad/s2, which is around 23% of the present observed value. Studies show in detail that both θ and ω 3 experience complex fluctuations at various time scales due to the variations of A, B and C.
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Founded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.40637034, No.40574004), the National 863 Program of China (No.2006AA12Z211) and the Fund of Key Lab of Geodynamic Geodesy of Chinese Academy (No.L06-02).
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Shen, W., Chen, W. & Sun, R. Earth’s temporal principal moments of inertia and variable rotation. Geo-spat. Inf. Sci. 11, 127–132 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11806-008-0064-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11806-008-0064-1