Atmospheric Angular Momentum Variations and Diurnal Polar Motion

Abstract The atmospheric effective angular momentum functions were used to study the excitation of the diurnal polar motion and nutation. The main effect on polar motion at the frequency of theS1tide is up to 10 µas, and on the annual prograde nutation term is up to 0.1 mas. The atmosphere and viscosity of the outer core of the Earth were taken into account in calculating the transfer function. The atmosphere treated as a thin rotating layer gives two new eigen-modes or two new resonance frequencies in the Earth’s transfer function, and one of them is in the diurnal frequency band. Viscosity of the fluid outer core and choice of the Earth’s model change the nearly diurnal frequencies of the normal modes.