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El Nino, La Nina and VLBI Measured LODVLBI is one of the most important techniques for measuring Earth orientation parameters (EOP), and is unique in its ability to make high accuracy measurements of UT1, and its time derivative, which is related to changes in the length of day, conventionally called LOD. These measurements of EOP give constraints on geophysical models of the solid-Earth, atmosphere and oceans. Changes in EOP are due either to external torques from gravitational forces, or to the exchange of angular momentum between the Earth, atmosphere and oceans. The effect of the external torques is strictly harmonic and nature, and is therefore easy to remove. We analyze an LOD time series derived from VLBI measurements with the goal of comparing this to predictions from AAM, and various ENSO indices. Previous work by ourselves and other investigators demonstrated a high degree of coherence between atmospheric angular momentum (AAM) and EOP. We continue to see this. As the angular momentum of the atmosphere increases, the rate of rotation of the Earth decreases, and vice versa. The signature of the ENSO is particularly strong. At the peak of the 1982-83 El Nino increased LOD by almost 1 ms. This was subsequently followed by a reduction in LOD of 0.75 ms. At its peak, in February of 1998, the 1997-98 El Nino increased LOD by 0.8 msec. As predicted at the 1998 Spring AGU, this has been followed by an abrupt decrease in LOD which is currently -0.4 ms. At this time (August, 1998) the current ENSO continues to develop in new and unexpected ways. We plan to update our analysis with all data available prior to the Fall AGU.
Document ID
19990116066
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Reprint (Version printed in journal)
Authors
Clark, Thomas A.
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD United States)
Gipson, J. M.
(NVI Greenbelt, MD United States)
Ma, C.
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD United States)
Date Acquired
August 19, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 1998
Subject Category
Geophysics
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

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