Climate change measurably affects the Earth's rotation
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Scientific literature and NASA-funded research establish that climate change phenomena, such as melting glaciers and sea-level rise, measurably alter the Earth's rotation.
a b s t r a c t The interaction and coupling of the Earth system components that include the atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, lithosphere, and other fluids in Earth's interior, influence the Earth's shape, gravity field and its rotation (the three pillars of geodesy). The effects of global climate change, such as sea level rise, glacier melting, and geoharzards, also affect these observables. However, observations and models of Earth's system change have large uncertainties due to the lack of direct high temporal-spatial mea- surements. Nowadays, space geodetic techniques, particularly GNSS, VLBI, SLR, DORIS, InSAR, satellite gravimetry and altimetry provide a unique opportunity to monitor and, therefore, understand the pro- cesses and feedback mechanisms of the Earth system with high resolution and precision. In this paper, the status of current space geodetic techniques, some recent observations, and interpretations of those observations in terms of the Earth system are presented. These results include the role of space geo- detic techniques, atmospheric-ionospheric sounding, ocean monitoring, hydrologic sensing, cryosphere mapping, crustal deformation and loading displacements, gravity field, geocenter motion, Earth's oblate- ness variations, Earth rotation and atmospheric-solid earth coupling, etc. The remaining questions and challenges regarding observing and understanding the Earth system are discussed.
Abstract
As one of the participants in the Second Earth Orientation Parameters Prediction Comparison Campaign (2nd EOP PCC), we submitted two data files. One is 365 days’ predictions into the future for Earth orientation parameters (EOP) (the position parameters Px and Py, the time parameters UT1-UTC and length of day changes ΔLOD), processed by the traditional least-square and autoregressive (LS + AR) model. Another is 90 days’ predictions by the combined least-square and convolution method (LS + Convolution), with effective angular momentum (EAM) from Earth System Modelling GeoForschungsZentrum in Potsdam (ESMGFZ). Results showed that the LS + Convolution method performed better than the LS + AR model in short-term EOP predictions within 10 days, while the traditional LS + AR model presented higher accuracy in medium-term predictions over 10–90 days. Furthermore, based on the climate change information in Earth’s rotation (mainly in the interannual variations of LOD), the climate change indicators are investigated with ΔLOD observations and long-term predictions. After two intermediate La Nina events were detected in the climate-related ΔLOD observations during the period of 2020–2022, another stronger La Nina phenomenon is indicated in the climate-related ΔLOD long-term predictions.
NASA-Funded Studies Explain How Climate Is Changing Earth’s Rotation - NASA
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