Polar Coordinates and UT1 — UTC from PZT Observations

Abstract

Use of new techniques (Doppler, laser, VLBI) has yielded such results that many astronomers believe that in the near future these techniques will replace classical instruments for observations of the Earth’s rotation. None of the modern techniques has furnished observational series which demonstrate that systematic errors in the polar coordinates and UT1 are stable over sufficiently long intervals. Investigations of known phenomena such as sudden changes of the secular term in UT1 — UTC (Munk and MacDonald, 1960), changes of the amplitude and phase of the seasonal irregularities (Fliegel and Hawkins, 1967; Pavlov and Staritzin, 1962), secular motion of the mean pole (Mihailov, 1971; Markowitz, 1960), continental drift (Stoyko, 1938; Djurovic, 1976), quasi-diurnal nutation of Molodenskij (Popov, 1963; Toomre, 1974; Rochester et al., 1974), etc., are complicated by the existence of systematic error variations (accuracy), and to a smaller degree, on the accidental errors (precision). The BIH and IPMS make use of individual series of astronomical latitude, Φ_i, and (UTO — UTC)_i from up to 82 classical instruments (Guinot, 1976). If the systematic errors in these series are independent, the polar coordinates and UT1 — UTC determined from a combination of observational series would result in an improvement of accuracy by at least one order of magnitude through the mutual compensation of the variation in systematic errors. At present, however, it is uncertain whether mutual independence of modern observations (a basic condition for mutual compensation of errors) will be better than that of the classical instruments.