Definition
Earth. Solid Earth including oceans and atmosphere.
Earth rotation. Temporal variation of the orientation and the rotation speed of the Earth.
Introduction
The rotation of the Earth or Earth rotation, respectively, specifies the spatiotemporal change of the Earth rotation vector. The direction of the Earth rotation vector corresponds to the instantaneous rotation axis of the Earth and its absolute value equals the rotation speed. The Earth’s rotation is not uniform and is given in terms of Earth orientation parameters (EOP): precession and nutation are long-term and periodic changes of the direction of the Earth rotation vector with respect to a space-fixed reference system. Polar motion is the variation of the direction of the Earth rotation vector with respect to an Earth-fixed reference system (qv Geodesy, Networks and Reference Systems ). Changes in the Earth rotation speed are expressed as deviations of Universal Time 1 (UT1) from the uniform atomic time (Universal...
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Schuh, H., Böhm, S. (2011). Earth Rotation. In: Gupta, H.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Solid Earth Geophysics. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8702-7_177
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