Terrestrial water storage and polar motion

Abstract

This study compares observed polar motion for the period 1900–1985 with meteorologic and hydrologic data for the world over the same period, in an effort to determine whether water storage, in combination with air mass redistribution, can account for the observed variance of polar motion. Monthly time series of estimated continental water storage and air mass excitation functions have been compared at the annual frequency and at the Chandler frequency using power, coherence, multiple coherence, and phase spectra. There is a discrepancy in accounting for more than half the variance of polar motion across a broad range of frequencies. Similar results have been obtained in recent studies of polar motion at frequencies above 1 cycle per year using modern space geodetic determinations of polar motion. The persistence of the discrepancy at the annual frequency and its broadband nature suggest a source of polar motion excitation due to air and water motion which has either not been correctly estimated or not yet identified.