Journal of Geodesy (1998) 72: 561±577
Diurnal atmospheric forcing and temporal variations
of the nutation amplitudes
C. Bizouard1, A. BrzezinÂski, S. Petrov2
Space Research Centre, Polish Academy of Sciences, Bartycka 18A, 00±716 Warsaw, Poland
e-mail: bizouard@obspm.fr
Received: 10 September 1997 = Accepted: 5 March 1998
Abstract. A 29-year time-series of four-times-daily at-
mospheric e€ective angular momentum (EAM) esti-
mates is used to study the atmospheric in¯uence on
nutation. The most important atmospheric contribu-
tions are found for the prograde annual (77 las),
retrograde annual (53 las), prograde semiannual
(45 las), and for the constant o€set of the pole
(dw sin e0 ˆ ÿ86 las, de ˆ 77 las). Among them only
the prograde semiannual component is driven mostly by
the wind term of the EAM function, while in all other
cases the pressure term is dominant. These are nonneg-
ligible quantities which should be taken into account in
the new theory of nutation. Comparison with the VLBI
corrections to the IAU 1980 nutation model taking into
account the ocean tide contribution yields good agree-
ment for the prograde annual and semiannual nutations.
We also investigated time variability of the atmospheric
contribution to the nutation amplitudes by performing
the sliding-window least-squares analysis of both the
atmospheric excitation and VLBI nutation data. Almost
all detected variations of atmospheric origin can be
attributed to the pressure term, the biggest being the in-
phase annual prograde component (about 30 las) and
the retrograde one (as much as 100±200 las). These
variations, if physical, limit the precision of classical
modeling of nutation to the level of 0:1 mas. Compar-
ison with the VLBI data shows signi®cant correlation
for the retrograde annual nutation after 1989, while for
the prograde annual term there is a high correlation in
shape but the size of the atmospherically driven varia-
tions is about three times less than deduced from the
VLBI data. This discrepancy in size can be attributed
either to inaccuracy of the theoretical transfer function
or the frequency-dependent ocean response to the
pressure variations. Our comparison also yields a
Correspondence to: C. Bizouard
1
On leave from: Observatoire de Paris, Paris, France
2
On leave from: Institute of Applied Astronomy, St.Petersburg,
Russia
considerably better agreement with the VLBI nutation
data when using the EAM function without the IB
correction for ocean response, which indicates that this
correction is not adequate for nearly diurnal variations.
Key words. Earth rotation
Nutation
Atmospheric
angular momentum
Atmospheric tides
1 Introduction
The proven causes of the variations in Earth orientation
fall into two categories: (1) the gravitational interaction
between the Earth and other celestial bodies, primarily
the Moon and the Sun; (2) exchanges of the angular
momentum between the solid Earth and its environ-
ment, the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the cryosphere,
and the liquid core. The spatial motion of the Celestial
Ephemeris Pole (CEP), that is precession and nutation,
is chie¯y the lunisolar e€ect which can be predicted to a
large extent. The atmosphere is the most important
driving agent of polar motion at seasonal frequencies
(Wahr 1983; Barnes et al. 1983), and plays a prominent
role in the excitation of the subseasonal irregular
variations (Eubanks et al. 1988) and of the free Chandler
wobble (Furuya et al. 1996). It is also expected that
diurnal variations in the atmospheric angular momen-
tum can excite minor but measurable changes in
nutation of the CEP (Sasao and Wahr, 1981; Gross,
unpublished manuscript presented at IUGG XXI
General Assembly 1995; Dehant et al. 1996). These
changes include a contribution to the free core nutation
(FCN) term of variable amplitude between 0.1 and 0.5
milliarcseconds (mas), as well as to the amplitudes of
some important lunisolar constituents of nutation (e.g.,
the annual prograde nutation corresponding to the S1
tide). An estimation of the atmospheric in¯uence upon
nutation is a part of the international e€orts aimed at
562
explaining the signi®cant discrepancies between the
International Astronomical Union (IAU) 1980 theory
of nutation and the Very Long Baseline Interferometry
(VLBI) measurements of the nutation angles, and at
working out a new nonrigid Earth nutation theory
(McCarthy and Dehant 1995).
There are two di€erent methods of modeling the at-
mospheric excitation of nutation. The ®rst one, com-
monly referred to as the torque approach, consists in the
computation of the atmospheric torque upon the solid
Earth (Bizouard 1995; Dehant et al. 1996; Viron et al.
1998). The second one, the angular momentum ap-
proach, is based on the angular momentum balance
between the atmosphere and the solid Earth (Sasao and
Wahr 1981; BrzezinÂski 1994; Gross, unpublished
manuscript presented at IUGG XXI General Assembly
1995; Zharov and Gambis 1996).
The present paper uses the angular momentum ap-
proach. Earlier attempts applying this method were
unable to reach any de®nitive conclusion due to the
lack of the appropriate atmospheric angular momen-
tum estimates. The situation has improved dramatically
recently. Since the middle of 1992 several meteorolog-
ical centers produce four-times-daily estimates of the
atmospheric E€ective Angular Momentum (EAM)
function v de®ned by Barnes et al. (1983) (see also
Salstein et al. 1993), which can be used to study diurnal
variations. The last important achievement is a 29-year
homogeneous series of the four-times-daily EAM esti-
mates (Salstein and Rosen 1997) computed on the basis
of results of the U.S. National Center for Environ-
mental Prediction (NCEP)/U.S. National Center for
Atmospheric Research (NCAR) reanalysis project
(Kalnay et al. 1996; Salstein 1995), spanning the period
from 1968.0 to 1997.3. Here we use this time-series in
order to estimate its power contents at diurnal retro-
grade frequencies and to estimate the corresponding
nutation.
One question addressed here which is extremely im-
portant from the practical point of view is the stability
of the atmospheric excitation. If the spectrum contains
sharp peaks, implying that the underlying process fol-
lows a simple sinusoidal model, then the atmospheric
e€ect can be included in the future nutation model. If it
is not the case, that is, the spectral peaks express only
pseudo-periodic components with variable amplitudes
and phases, then the atmospheric contributions to nut-
ation can only be estimated a posteriori from observa-
tions, and the size of the variations limits the accuracy of
any nutation model. A simple way of treating this
problem is to estimate the ``instantaneous'' phase and
amplitude by narrowing the input data interval, and
then to check how these quantities vary with time. This
is the so-called sliding-window analysis.
The estimated atmospheric contribution to the nut-
ation amplitudes can be compared with the empirical
corrections to the IAU 1980 model, derived from VLBI
observations. Such a comparison, however, cannot be
conclusive if we do not take into account a variety of
other e€ects such as a nonhydrostatic ¯attening of the
liquid core, in¯uence of the ocean diurnal tide, and
mantle anelasticity; see Dehant and Defraigne (1997) for
review. A more ecient way of verifying the estimated
atmospheric contribution to nutation is to compare the
time variability of the amplitudes and phases with a
similar e€ect derived from the celestial pole o€sets ob-
served by VLBI. Moreover, such a comparison is also an
important external check of the reliability of the atmo-
spheric angular momentum data at nearly diurnal peri-
ods.
Another important problem of interest concerns the
oceanic response to variations of the surface pressure
which modi®es the atmospheric in¯uence upon Earth
rotation. The EAM data set contains two versions of the
pressure term: one which is not corrected for the ocean
response, assuming a rigid ocean, and the other one with
the so-called inverted barometer (IB) correction assum-
ing static equilibrium response of the ocean. It is com-
monly believed that the IB correction is adequate for
seasonal and longer-period components of the EAM
function (Wahr 1983), but the barotropic numerical
model indicates that this correction is not reliable at
periods shorter than 2 days (Ponte et al. 1991); see also
Salstein et al. (1993) for further details. By using both
versions of the EAM data and comparing results with
the VLBI observations of nutation, one can try to verify
the IB correction at nearly diurnal periods.
We start by recalling in Sect. 2.1 some important
equations relating the atmospheric excitation quantities
to nutation derived by BrzezinÂski (1994) on the basis of
the dynamical theory of Sasao and Wahr (1981). Next,
we compute from the EAM data the so-called Celestial
E€ective Angular Momentum (CEAM) function and
perform its spectral analysis in order to ®nd which
nutation terms are in¯uenced by the atmosphere and to
make preliminary estimates of the corresponding incre-
mental amplitudes (Sect. 2.2). In Sect. 2.3 the
atmospheric contribution to nutation is estimated by a
least-squares analysis. In Sect. 2.4 we introduce the
ocean tide contribution computed by Dehant and De-
fraigne (1997). The oceanic corrections are then em-
ployed to compare the atmospheric nutations to the
di€erences between the IAU 1980 nutation theory and
the VLBI observations of the nutation angles. Sect. 3 of
the paper is devoted to the problem of time variability
of the atmospherically driven nutations. We carry out in
Sect. 3.1 the sliding-window least-squares analysis of the
CEAM data in order to ®nd to what extent the average
amplitudes derived in Sect. 2.3 express the instantaneous
atmospheric excitation. In Sect. 3.2 we make a similar
sliding window least-squares analysis of the VLBI nut-
ation data and compare results with the time variability
of the atmospheric contribution. Finally, Sect. 4 gives a
brief summary and discussion of the results obtained
from this research.
Many technical details of our computations are given
in three appendices, which were mainly motivated by the
fact that there are di€erences in the available literature
concerning parameterization of nutation, examples be-
ing various conventions applied for representing nutat-
ional motion of the pole by complex variables or for
labeling prograde and retrograde nutations.

2 Computation of the atmospheric contributions
to nutation
2.1 Formulation of the problem
Nutation is excited by nearly diurnal retrograde (that
means propagating westward; see Appendix C for a
strict de®nition of prograde and retrograde motions)
forcings, as seen from the rotating Earth. The main
contribution is from the lunisolar gravitational torque
exerted on the Earth's equatorial bulge, and this is the
only e€ect which is taken into account in the IAU 1980
theory of nutation (Wahr 1981; Seidelmann 1982). But
nearly diurnal retrograde variations in the distribution
of atmospheric mass and/or in the wind pattern change
the atmospheric angular momentum which, in turn,
induce nutational motion of the solid Earth through
the conservation of the total angular momentum of the
solid Earth and ¯uid environment system. The atmo-
spheric diurnal tides are dominated by the thermal
tides driven by the diurnal change in solar heating,
with the biggest term being the Sun-®xed S1 tide
(Chapman and Lindzen 1970). These tides are accom-
panied by corresponding changes in the equatorial
EAM which we will label in the same manner as the
tides themselves. The S1 diurnal retrograde EAM
component, which has an annual prograde frequency
with respect to the space-®xed frame, undergoes annual
and semiannual modulation which gives rise to the
diurnal retrograde components K1 , P1 , w1 , p1 with
space-referred frequencies zero, prograde semiannual,
retrograde annual, and prograde terannual, respectively
(Eubanks et al. 1986; see also Appendix A for
explanation). Unlike the gravitational tides, which can
always be decomposed into spherical harmonics in the
discrete frequency domain representation, the thermal
diurnal tides are much more complicated and we
should consider them as one band-pass process having
a continuous spectrum in the diurnal retrograde
frequency band.
The theoretical background of the present study is
provided by BrzezinÂski (1994). Let the complex quan-
tity v ˆ v1 ‡ iv2 be the equatorial component of the
atmospheric e€ective angular momentum (EAM)
function, calculated within a terrestrial frame, which
consists of:
1. a term proportional to I13 ‡ iI23 , that is, the complex
combination of the o€-diagonal atmospheric inertia
moments I13 and I23 within the terrestrial frame; this
term can be expressed, assuming hydrostatic equilib-
rium and thin layer hypotheses, as a function of a
surface integral of the surface pressure, and hence is
called the pressure term vp ;
2. a term proportional to the equatorial atmospheric
angular momentum with respect to the crust, caused
by the surface atmospheric ¯ow, and hence called the
wind term vw .
See Barnes et al. (1983) for de®nition of v and
computational details, and Salstein et al. (1993) for a
report on operational determinations of v.
563
BrzezinÂski (1994) introduced the atmospheric celes-
tial e€ective angular momentum (CEAM) function v0
which is convenient for studying atmospheric and
oceanic excitation of nutation. To ®rst-order approxi-
mation, v0 is the EAM function v expressed in the space-
®xed frame, which justi®es the terminology. The CEAM
function is de®ned by
v0 ˆ ÿveiU …1†
and similar expressions for the pressure term v0 p and for
the wind term v0 w . Note the convention which will be
applied throughout the whole paper: adding the prime
means that the quantity is expressed in the space-®xed
frame. In Eq. (1) U denotes the Greenwich sidereal time
which can be expressed as U ˆ X…t ÿ t0 † ‡ U0 , where X
is the sidereal diurnal frequency, t0 denotes the reference
epoch and U0 …t† is a quasi-constant phase referred to t0
[see Appendix B for details concerning practical appli-
cations of Eq. (1)].
Let P ˆ Dw sin e0 ‡ iDe be the complex combination
of the X and Y components of the Celestial Ephemeris
Pole (CEP) in the true equatorial plane, where Dw and
De are the corresponding increments in longitude and
obliquity, and e0 is the mean obliquity at the reference
epoch t0 ˆ J 2000:0 (BrzezinÂski and Capitaine 1993). The
atmospheric e€ect on nutation can be expressed by the
following frequency domain relation (BrzezinÂski 1994,
Eq. 4.9):
p w
P …r0 † ˆ Tp …r0 †v0 …r0 † ‡ Tw …r0 †v0 …r0 † …2†
in which
" #
0 1 ap
Tp …r † ˆ rc 0 ‡ 0 …3†
rc ÿ r rf ÿ r0
0
and similar expression with Tp ; ap replaced by Tw ; aw ,
respectively. Here Tp ; Tw are transfer functions of the
pressure term and of the wind term, respectively, r0 is
the nutation angular frequency, r0c ˆ rc ‡ X and r0f are
the space-referred angular frequencies of the Chandler
wobble (CW) and of the free core nutation (FCN)
modes, rc is the Earth-referred Chandler frequency, and
ap ˆ 9:509  10ÿ2 , aw ˆ 5:489  10ÿ4 are dimensionless
coecients expressing response of the FCN mode to the
pressure and wind excitation.
Equations (2) and (3) are not sensitive to the choice
of the Chandler frequency which is far from the nutation
frequencies. Therefore we adopted in our computations
the observed dissipationless value of rc ˆ 2p=433:3
days. The dependence on the adopted FCN frequency is
much more important, particularly for the w1 wave (see
Fig. 1). The FCN complex frequency r0f ˆ ÿ…2p=Tf0 †
…1 ÿ i=2Q0f † is much less constrained from observations
than is the CW frequency, so we applied Eq. (2) trying
di€erent values in the range of 415±435 days for the
FCN period Tf0 and 10±100 for the FCN quality factor
Q0f ˆ Qf =…Tf0 ‡ 2† where Qf is the usually used Earth-
referred value (BrzezinÂski 1998).
Finally, let us note that for obvious reasons the the-
ory presented in this section can also be applied to
564

a Original series S1 ®lter at frequencies 1, 2, 3, and 10 cpy (cycles per year) is

Removed model 0:964, 0:867, 0:725, and 0:028, respectively. This choice
PSD (decibels)

20 K1
P1 π1 of FWHM seems to be a reasonable compromise be-
ψ1 tween two contradictory requirements: (1) amplitudes of
FCN the expected periodical constituents should not be af-
fected by the smoothing, and (2) no power should be left
0 at frequencies higher than the Nyquist frequency 10 cpy
-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 in order to avoid aliasing. For the least-squares analyses
performed in the next sections we adopted Dt ˆ 0:0125
40 b S1 P1 year and FWHM ˆ 0:025 year which yields the transfer
PSD (decibels)

function of the Gaussian smoother equal to 0:998, 0:991,

π1 and 0:980 at frequencies 1, 2, and 3 cpy, respectively.
20
ψ1 K1 From the point of view of time-series analysis, the
FCN foregoing procedure is the complex demodulation
0
(Bingham et al. 1967) of the original EAM series at
frequency ÿX. It eliminates all variations with fre-
-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 quencies outside the diurnal retrograde band, including
70 c P1 seasonal term and diurnal prograde oscillations. Note,
S1 however, that due to the discrete sampling of the EAM
PSD (decibels)

50 ψ1 function, all periodic terms with frequencies near

K1
30 FCN
10
-3 -2 -1 0 1
Frequency (cycles/year)
Fig. 1a±c. Maximum entropy power spectra of the original CEAM
series and after removing the best least-squares ®t of the model
comprising ®rst-order polynomial and sinusoids with periods 1 year,
1=2 year, 1=3 year: a pressure term; b pressure term + IB
correction; c wind term
describe oceanic e€ects on Earth rotation (BrzezinÂski
1994). In this case it would be more appropriate to
adopt slightly di€erent terminology: the matter and
motion terms instead of the pressure and wind terms.
2.2 Spectral analysis of the equatorial CEAM functions
A ®rst step in our analysis was to calculate the
atmospheric CEAM function v0 by applying the trans-
formation given by Eq. (1) to the EAM data (see
Appendix B for computational details). The nearly
diurnal retrograde variations map in this transformation
into low-frequency variations, while all other changes
(including seasonal terms and secular variations) appear
in v0 as high-frequency oscillations which can be easily
removed by smoothing. A ®nal step in the initial data
processing is to reduce the number of data by making
the sample interval Dt longer, in accordance with the
degree of smoothing.
For the purpose of spectral analysis described in this
section we adopted Dt ˆ 0:05 year which is suciently
short to express all variations with periods of 1=3 year or
longer. We performed simultaneous smoothing and in-
terpolation of the CEAM series using the low-pass
Gaussian ®lter (Feissel and Lewandowski 1984) with full
width at half of maximum (FWHM) equal to 2Dt ˆ 0:1
year. The theoretical amplitude transfer function of this
π1 …ÿ1 ‡ 4s†X, s ˆ 1; 2; . . ., that means 3, ÿ5, 7, ÿ9, . . .
cycles per sidereal day, could alias into the diurnal ret-
rograde band. We do not expect that this undesired ef-
fect is signi®cant, on the basis of the following
arguments. First, the estimation of the EAM function
2 3
involves time averaging (Kalnay et al. 1996), hence it can
be assumed that the ®nal values are not the instanta-
neous samples but rather the 6-hourly means. Second,
though the theoretical models (Chapman and Lindzen
1970, p. 43) predict 8-hourly local surface pressure
variations, the average kinetic energy spectrum of the
free atmosphere shown in Fig. 1.1 of Volland (1988) is
nevertheless rather ¯at between the peaks at 1 cycle per
day and about 1 cycle per minute. On the other hand, at
lower frequencies this spectrum shows the same features
as does the EAM spectrum, namely the sharp peaks at 1
cycle per year (Wahr 1983) and 1 cycle per day (this
paper), and a broad peak extending approximately from
1 cycle per month to 1 cycle per week (BrzezinÂski 1987;
Eubanks et al. 1988).
As a next step we applied the maximum entropy
method (MEM) of spectral analysis to the CEAM series.
According to BrzezinÂski (1995) this high-resolution
method is particularly well suited for studying variations
in Earth rotation. It yields a realistic estimate of the
power spectral density (PSD) function, which can be
integrated numerically in order to derive amplitudes of
the detected oscillations. In our approach we treated the
CEAM functions as well as the corresponding nutation
as complex quantities v0 ˆ v01 ‡ iv02 and P ˆ dw sin e
‡ide, respectively, distinguishing between the prograde
(counterclockwise) and retrograde (clockwise) oscilla-
tions (see Appendix C). We considered separately the
pressure term vp with and without the inverted barometer
(IB) correction for the ocean response bearing in mind
that the true solution at diurnal periods which is pres-
ently not known, may be di€erent from these two cases.
Spectral estimates presented in Fig. 1 and Table 1
correspond to the CEAM series from 1979:0 to 1997:3.
We noticed that when adding the data prior to 1979, the
results become worse in that the average noise back-
 565

Table 1a±c. Atmospheric excitation of nutation estimated from the
maximum entropy spectral analysis of the CEAM series spanning
the period from 1979.0 to 1997.3. Power contribution is expressed
by the unitless ratio of the power P included in a particular spectral
peak to the total power, or sample variance V , of thepinput series.
Nutation amplitude is the CEAM mean amplitude P multiplied
by the modulus of the transfer function T . Numbers in parenthesis
are the values derived from the CEAM series after removal of the
linear trend and a sum of sinusoids with periods 1 year, 1/2
year, 1/3 year. Units are mas for the amplitudes. a pressure term
vp , sample variance V ˆ 2:11 …0:69† mas2 ; b pressure term vp + IB,
sample variance V ˆ 2:04 …0:11† mas2 ; c wind term vw , sample
variance V ˆ 512:23 …19:24† mas2

nutation label w1 K1 S1 P1 p1
frequency )1 cpy 0 cpy 1 cpy 2 cpy 3 cpy

a power contribution P=Vp

(%) 3.5 6.9 71.9 7.7 3.8
mean CEAM amplitude P 0.27 0.38 1.23 0.40 0.28
p (0.25) (0.36) (0.83) (0.32) (0.23)
mean nutation amplitude jT j P 0.172 0.035 0.051 0.010 0.005
(0.159) (0.033) (0.034) (0.008) (0.004)
b power contribution P=Vp
(%) 0.5 0.8 82.6 14.1 0.9
mean CEAM amplitude P 0.10 0.13 1.30 0.54 0.14
p (0.10) (0.11) (0.24) (0.07)
mean nutation amplitude jT j P 0.066 0.012 0.053 0.014 0.003
(0.066) (0.010) (0.010) (0.002)
c power contribution P=Vp
(%) 0.6 0.5 41.2 56.8 0.2
mean CEAM amplitude P 1.77 1.60 14.53 17.06 0.94
p (1.10) (1.51) (3.30) (1.30) (0.80)
mean nutation amplitude jT j P 0.011 0.003 0.032 0.038 0.002
(0.007) (0.003) (0.007) (0.003) (0.002)

ground increases and signi®cantly less power can be
removed from the series by sinusoidal modeling of the
detected spectral lines. A similar e€ect could be observed
when performing the least-squares analysis in order to
determine the amplitudes of the atmospheric nutations
(see Sect. 2.3). This degradation of quality of the CEAM
estimates may be due to the fact that the global cover-
age, both spatial and temporal, of the pressure and wind
data, was rather poor in the sixties and seventies in
comparison to the last two decades. Nevertheless, when
studying variability of the atmospheric contribution to
nutation, reported in Sect. 3, we took into account all
the available CEAM data.
The main common features of the MEM power
spectra shown in Fig. 1 are the dominating annual
prograde (S1 ) and semiannual prograde (P1 ) peaks, with
additional contribution from the terannual prograde
(p1 ), zero-frequency (K1 ) and annual retrograde (w1 )
peaks. The only unexpected result is a weak excess of
power at the semiannual retrograde frequency ÿ2 cpy,
particularly well seen in the wind term, which cannot be
explained by annual and semiannual modulation of the
thermal S1 tide (Appendix A). The CEAM amplitudes
computed from the MEM power spectra are shown in
Table 1. The corresponding nutation amplitudes given
in the last rows of a, b, and c of Table should be treated
as upper limits of the atmospheric contribution for the
following reasons.
1. We used the transfer function T …r† given by eq. (2),
with di€erent values of the FCN complex frequency r0f
(see Sect. 2.1). Only the highest estimates are shown in
Table 1. In fact, the di€erences are signi®cant only for
the w1 term, up to 20% of the tabulated results.
2. Mean amplitude at one particular frequency is the
square root of the power (variance) included in the
whole peak which equals the true amplitude only
when the oscillation is strictly harmonic. When the
oscillation is pseudo-periodic with variable amplitude
and phase, the mean amplitude is higher than the
amplitude in the least-squares sense.
3. Additionally, the mean amplitude can also be slightly
overestimated due to the contribution of the mea-
surement noise included in the data.
Note also that p
the
 estimated nutation amplitudes should
be divided by 2 if we like to express them in terms of
dw sin e and de separately.
From Table 1 it can be seen that though nearly di-
urnal retrograde variations of the wind term are much
larger than those of the pressure term (by more than 1
order in amplitude or 2 orders in power), nevertheless
they are strongly attenuated by the low values of the
transfer function (aw  ap ) and the corresponding nut-
ations are smaller. The atmospheric contribution to the
annual prograde nutation is of the order of 50 las for
the pressure term and 30 las for the wind term. In the
case of the semiannual prograde nutation the wind term
can contribute almost 40 las while the pressure term
contribution is about three times smaller. The highest
values are obtained for the w1 term, up to 170 las, but
they could be signi®cantly overestimated (cf. Table 3)
for the following reason in addition to those presented
earlier concerning all peaks. The atmospheric in¯uence
upon nutation shown in Table 1 is computed assuming
that the whole power is concentrated at the central fre-
quency of the peak or that the transfer function does not
vary within the peak domain. This assumption is satis-
®ed for all but the annual retrograde peak since this
peak is rather broad and close to the FCN resonance of
the transfer function (see Fig. 1). This part of the at-
mospheric angular momentum spectrum will be inves-
tigated separately, in the context of the excitation of the
FCN free oscillation (BrzezinÂski 1998).
566
An important question concerning the atmospheric
excitation of nutation is the extent to which this phe-
nomenon follows a simple sinusoidal pattern which can
be included in the nutation model. Any signi®cant de-
parture from this pattern de®nes accuracy limits for any
future nutation model, at least in the classic form as-
suming constant or secularly changing amplitudes (see
Appendix C). Our preliminary attempt to clarify this
problem is to remove from the CEAM series the best
least-squares ®t of the ®rst-order polynomial and the
sum of sinusoids with periods 1 year, 1=2 year, 1=3
year, and then repeating the MEM spectral analysis.
Results are shown as dotted lines in Fig. 1 and as am-
plitude estimates in parenthesis in Table 1. We can see
that the model removed most of the power from the
wind term (96%) and from the pressure term with the IB
correction (95%), leaving a relatively smooth spectrum
with signi®cant excess of power only around the annual
prograde frequency. In the non-IB case the reduction of
total power is signi®cantly lower (about 66%) and none
of the peaks is cancelled completely. The remaining ir-
regular contribution to the nutation amplitudes does not
exceed 7 las for the wind term and 10 las for the pres-
sure term with the IB correction, if we exclude from
considerations the annual retrograde nutation. This ir-
regular contribution is more signi®cant for the pressure
term without the IB correction, about 30 las for the
annual prograde nutation and constant o€set/linear
trend corresponding to the K1 peak, and much more for
the annual retrograde nutation due to an ampli®cation
by the FCN resonance.
A more detailed analysis of the time variability of the
atmospherically driven nutations will be given in Sect.
3.1, and comparison with a similar e€ect in the VLBI
observations of nutation will be done in Sect. 3.2.
2.3 Atmospheric contribution to nutation
A determination of the amplitude and phase of all
circular terms revealed in the previous section by the
spectral analysis, has been performed by a least-squares
®t. As our purpose is to estimate the e€ects on the
corresponding circular nutations, the adopted model of
the CEAM function v0 is the same as that for nutation,
described in details in Appendix C. For the j-th circular
term we have
ip op  ip op
v0 j ˆ …v0 j ‡ iv0 j †eihj …t† ˆ i…v0 j ‡ iv0 j †eisj hj …
with

hj …t† ˆ sj hj …t† ‡ p=2 ˆ sj …kj t ‡ hj † ‡ p=2 …
(cf. Eq. (22) of Appendix C), where t denotes time
referred to the standard epoch J2000.0 and sj equals
either 1 or ÿ1 in such a way that sj kj equals exactly the
angular frequency of nutation, positive for prograde
motion and negative for retrograde motion. The real and
imaginary parts of the complex amplitude, labeled by the
superscripts ``ip'', ``op'', are amplitudes of the in-phase
and out-of-phase terms of v0j . As explained in Appendix
C, hj is a quasi-constant phase of the nutation argument,
which can be treated in our applications as constant.
Moreover we added to the model a linear trend cor-
responding to the zero-frequency peak, obtaining ®nally
X
4
ip op 
v0 ˆ …v0 j ‡ iv0 j †eihj …t† ‡ v0co ‡ v0sl t …6†
jˆ1
where the summation extends over the prograde annual,
semiannual, terannual, and the retrograde annual terms,
v0 ip 0 op 0 0
j , v j are real coecients and v co , vsl are complex
coecients.
The least-squares analysis was applied separately to
the pressure term and to the wind term over two periods:
1968.0±1997.3 (all the data) and 1979.0±1997.3. There
are signi®cant di€erences between the two sets of cor-
responding estimates, up to 1 mas (for the annual term
of v0 w ). This is due to the irregularity of the atmospheric
excitation, mentioned already in Sect. 2.2. As seen in
Sect. 3, the atmospheric excitation is much more stable
after 1979. Therefore the estimates for the period
1979.0±1997.3, presented in Table 2, should be treated as
more meaningful.
The contribution to nutation was then computed
simply by multiplying the complex amplitudes
v0 ip ‡ iv0 op from Table 2 by the appropriate term of the
transfer function given by Eq. (2); note that the transfer
function is also complex-valued, and therefore this
transformation changes not only the amplitude of v0j but
also its phase. This method is not directly applicable to
the linear trend of v0 . Instead, we inserted this part of the
model into the time-domain version of Eq. (2), which is
Eq. (3.15) of BrzezinÂski (1994), and then solved the
equation analytically. After neglecting the free terms
expressing the FCN oscillation, the solution is also a
®rst-order polynomial
 
P ˆ b1 v0co ‡ v0sl t ‡ b2 v0sl …7†
in which
rc
b1 ˆ 0 0 …ar0c ‡ r0f † …8†
rc rf
" #
irc …ar0c ‡ r0f †…r0c ‡ r0f †
b2 ˆ 0 0 1 ‡ a ÿ …9†
rc rf r0c r0f
4†
and a ˆ ap or a ˆ aw ; note that b1 is unitless while b2 has
a dimension of time. For the pressure excitation (a ˆ ap )
we derive b1 ˆ ÿ0:089, b2 ˆ ÿ0:017i years, and for the
5† wind term (a ˆ aw ) b1 ˆ 0:002, b2 ˆ ÿ5  10ÿ5 i years.
These are dissipationless values (that means assuming
Q0f ˆ 1), which do not di€er by more than 10% from
the values corresponding to the ®nite Q0f .
One can notice that b1 equals the transfer function,
given by Eq. (2), at r0 ˆ 0. In fact, for empirical values
of v0co , v0sl given in Table 2, the term b2 v0sl is of little
importance in Eq. (7), hence a direct extension of the
frequency domain method used for the sinusoidal terms,
 567

Table 2a, b. The best least-squares ®t of the model expressing the polynomial. a Circular terms with arguments the same as for nu-
equatorial atmospheric CEAM function v0 spanning the period tations, amplitudes are in mas. b Linear trend referred to J2000.0,
from 1979.0 to 1997.3. The model consists of four circular oscil- units are las for the constant and las/year for the trend coecient
lations corresponding to the nutation terms, and the ®rst-order

a circular term contribution in-phase out-of-phase

‡1=3 year pressure 0:031  0:018 0:231  0:018

pressure + IB ÿ0:025  0:007 0:137  0:007
wind ÿ0:433  0:121 0:023  0:121
‡1=2 year pressure ÿ0:115  0:018 0:206  0:018
pressure + IB 0:548  0:007 ÿ0:190  0:007
wind ÿ2:872  0:121 ÿ18:500  0:122
‡1 year pressure 0:231  0:018 1:156  0:018
pressure + IB 1:033  0:007 0:805  0:007
wind ÿ0:147  0:122 ÿ14:197  0:122
ÿ1 year pressure 0:060  0:018 ÿ0:056  0:018
pressure + IB 0:049  0:007 0:007  0:007
wind 1:001  0:122 1:053  0:122

b linear term contribution real imaginary

constant pressure 0:641  0:044 ÿ0:758  0:042

pressure + IB ÿ0:010  0:018 ÿ0:963  0:017
wind ÿ16:075  0:290 5:011  0:301
secular pressure 0:010  0:003 ÿ0:023  0:003
pressure + IB 0:011  0:001 ÿ0:002  0:001
wind 0:057  0:022 0:120  0:023

that is P ˆ T …r0 ˆ 0†
‰v0co ‡ v0sl tŠ, gives a reasonably
good approximation in the present case.
The estimated atmospheric contributions to the cir-
cular nutations, as well as to the constant o€set of the
pole and to the linear trend, are displayed in Table 3. As
could be expected, the most important contribution is to
the annual nutation, about 75 las for the prograde term.
The retrograde annual term in the CEAM function is
about 20 times smaller than the prograde one, but after
a strong ampli®cation by the FCN resonance, the cor-
responding nutation amplitude reaches the level of 40 to
50 las. There is also a signi®cant semiannual prograde
term with the amplitude of about 40 to 45 las driven
mostly by the wind term. The amplitude of the prograde
terannual term, though signi®cant in view of its formal
error, is small when compared to the current precision of
the nutation determinations. An interesting observation
is that with an exception of the annual retrograde nut-
ation, the atmospheric contributions are dominated by
the out-of-phase terms. If the IB correction is not ap-
plied, all phases with respect to the IAU arguments sj hj
are in the range of ÿ5 to ÿ20 , while for the gravita-
tional lunisolar tides this di€erence is either 90 or ÿ90
(see Appendix C). In the case of the annual prograde
nutation (Fig. 2), which is of particular interest here, the
IAU argument sj hj is equivalent to the mean anomally l0
of the Sun. The phase di€erence of the IAU 1980 annual
prograde nutation with respect to l0 , hence with respect
to the Sun, is ÿ90 , while for the atmospheric S1 term we
obtained ÿ7 (ÿ34 for IB case) ± see Table 3. Dehant
et al. (1996) computed the e€ect of the diurnal pressure
torque on the annual prograde nutation and found the
phase di€erence with respect to the gravitational nut-
ation in the range of 123 to 174 (with the most prob-
able value 131 ), that is from 33 to 84 with respect to
the Sun. These values di€er from the present results
signi®cantly, as illustrated in Fig. 2. The di€erences
between the results given in the present paper and in
Dehant et al. (1996) concerning the atmospheric con-
tribution to the annual nutation certainly exceed the
error bounds given by the respective authors. The ex-
planation of this disagreement is out of the scope of this
paper and deserves further study.
The nonzero mean of the CEAM functions v0 causes
a constant o€set of the celestial pole of the size almost
0:1 mas both for Dw sin e0 and De. Physically, this o€set
is caused by annual modulation of the atmospheric di-
urnal retrograde tide S1 (Appendix A) with a larger
contribution from the pressure term. The estimated rates
of the order of 2 las/year for the linear trend in longi-
tude and obliquity are small and do not necessarily re-
¯ect the true secular e€ect but rather the long-periodic
atmospheric perturbation. Again, this estimate di€ers
signi®cantly from that computed by Dehant et al.
(1996). We do not have any explanation for this di€er-
ence. Note, however, that in the latter estimation only
the pressure torque was taken into account.
It should be noted that the original AAM series were
not provided with any information on the uncertainties
in the data. In order to estimate the error bars of the
computed amplitudes of the CEAM variations we used
the following procedure. We calculated the sample co-
variances of the smoothed CEAM series at zero lag, c^0 ,
and at the lag equal to the sampling interval, c^1 . We
applied the standard biased estimate given by
1 X L
c^k ˆ xl xlÿk …10†
L lˆk‡1
where L is the length of the series and xl ˆ v0 …t0 ‡ lDt†
for l ˆ 1; 2; . . . ; L. If r is the measurement error then the
true covariance function at zero lag, c0 , is increased by
568

Table 3a, b. Atmospheric contribution to nutations, constant o€set
of the pole, and slopes in longitude and obliquity. Nutation ar-
gument, denoted in Appendix C by sj hj , means the standard integer
combination of the Brown's arguments, multiplied additionally by
‡1 or ÿ1. Also given for comparison are ocean tide contributions
after Dehant and Defraigne (1997) and the VLBI corrections to the
IAU 1980 model. a Contribution to circular terms. b Contribution
to the constant pole o€set at epoch J2000.0 and to the slope in
longitude and obliquity. Also given are ocean tide e€ects after
Gross (1993)

a nutation contribution in-phase out-of-phase amplitude phase/ phase/

las las las nut.argument IAU1980 model
+1/3 year pressure )0.5 ‹ 0.3 )4.3 ‹ 0.3 4.3 ‹ 0.4 )7° ‹ 5 )97° ‹ 5
pressure+IB 0.5 ‹ 0.1 )2.5 ‹ 0.1 2.6 ‹ 0.2 17° ‹ 4 )73° ‹ 4
wind )1.0 ‹ 0.3 0.0 ‹ 0.3 1.0 ‹ 0.3 )93° ‹ 17 177° ‹ 17
total )1.5 ‹ 0.6 )4.2 ‹ 0.6 4.5 ‹ 0.8 )20° ‹ 10 )110° ‹ 10
total+IB )0.5 ‹ 0.4 )2.5 ‹ 0.4 2.5 ‹ 0.4 )11° ‹ 10 )101° ‹ 10
VLBI 17 20
+1/2 year pressure 3.0 ‹ 0.5 )5.2 ‹ 0.5 6.0 ‹ 0.6 29° ‹ 6 )61° ‹ 6
pressure+IB )14.0 ‹ 0.2 4.8 ‹ 0.2 14.8 ‹ 0.2 )109° ‹ 1 )199° ‹ 1
wind )6.0 ‹ 0.3 )39.8 ‹ 0.3 40.2 ‹ 0.3 )9° ‹ 1 )99° ‹ 1
total )3.1 ‹ 0.7 )45.0 ‹ 0.7 45.1 ‹ 0.8 )4° ‹ 1 )94° ‹ 1
total+IB )20 ‹ 0.4 )35.0 ‹ 0.4 40.3 ‹ 0.6 )30° ‹ 1 )120° ‹ 1
ocean )570 580
VLBI )606 510
+1 year pressure )9.0 ‹ 1.0 )46.8 ‹ 0.7 47.7 ‹ 0.8 )11° ‹ 1 79° ‹ 1
Pressure+IB )41.6 ‹ 0.3 )32.8 ‹ 0.3 53 ‹ 0.4 )52° ‹ 0.4 38° ‹ 0.4
wind )0.2 ‹ 0.3 )29.2 ‹ 0.3 29.2 ‹ 0.3 0° ‹ 1 90° ‹ 1
total )9.3 ‹ 0.7 )76.0 ‹ 1.0 76.6 ‹ 1.1 )7° ‹ 1 83° ‹ 1
total+IB )41.8 ‹ 0.5 )62.0 ‹ 0.5 74.8 ‹ 0.7 )34° ‹ 1 56° ‹ 1
ocean 30 )30
VLBI 12 )124
)1 year pressure 37.7 ‹ 11.5 )36.5 ‹ 11.5 52.5 ‹ 16.5 46° ‹ 18 )44° ‹ 18
pressure+IB 31.5 ‹ 4.6 3.8 ‹ 4.7 31.7 ‹ 5.2 46° ‹7 224° ‹ 7
wind 6.0 ‹ 0.7 6.2 ‹ 0.7 8.7 ‹ 1.0 97° ‹9 7° ‹ 9
total 43.7 ‹ 12.3 )30.3 ‹ 12.3 53.2 ‹ 17.1 )55° ‹ 18 )35° ‹ 18
total+IB 37.5 ‹ 5.3 10.3 ‹ 5.3 39.0 ‹ 6.5 105° ‹ 10 15° ‹ 10
ocean )210 210
VLBI 1976 )322

b contribution dw sin e0 de w sin e0 e_

las las las/year las/year

pressure )58 ‹ 4 68 ‹ 4 )0.9 ‹ 0.3 2.1 ‹ 0.3

pressure+IB 1‹ 2 86 ‹ 2 )0.9 ‹ 0.1 0.2 ‹ 0.1
wind )29 ‹ 1 9‹ 1 0.1 ‹ 0.0 0.2 ‹ 0.0
total )86 ‹ 5 77 ‹ 4 )0.8 ‹ 0.3 2.3 ‹ 0.3
total+IB )28 ‹ 2 95 ‹ 2 )0.8 ‹ 0.2 0.4 ‹ 0.2
ocean 4698 7518

r2 , yielding c0 ‡ r2 . Bearing in mind that the true
autocovariance function at the successive lag, c1 , never
exceeds c0 , we estimated the a priori formal error for the
p
least-squares analysis as r^ ˆ c^0 ÿ c^1 . This algorithm
was applied separately to the real and imaginary parts of
v0 . The method described works well if the measurement
process is white noise. When the CEAM series were
smoothed prior to the analysis, this assumption is no
longer valid and, as a consequence, the error bars
presented in Tables 2 and 3 and in Figs. 3 and 4 may be
signi®cantly underestimated with respect to their true
values. However, the ratios between the errors for
separate amplitudes are properly conserved.
2.4 Corrections for the ocean tide
Since the atmosphere is coupled with the ocean, it is of
interest to consider the atmospheric and oceanic e€ects
on nutation together. Besides, recently the oceanic
dynamical models have been validated by the high-
precision TOPEX/Poseidon observations, giving high
credibility to the oceanic nutational corrections.
The world ocean, along with the atmosphere, is an
important agent in the diurnal angular momentum ex-
change. Besides the fact that the ocean modi®es the
atmospheric pressure in¯uence upon the solid Earth, it
also exhibits tidal variations of its surface elevation and
tidal currents, which both contribute to the oceanic
angular momentum. Fortunately, it appears that the
power of the oceanic diurnal tide is concentrated
around the K1 wave with period of 1 sidereal day,
whereas that of the atmospheric tide is near the S1 wave
with period of 1 mean solar day. That permits us to a
certain extent to separate the e€ects of these two geo-
physical ¯uids.
The dynamical processes in the ocean are not so ex-
tensively studied as those in the atmosphere and the

Dehant et al.
-7° Atmospheric prograde
annual nutation
-34° With IB correction
IAU prograde annual nutation
Fig. 2. Direction of the atmospheric prograde annual nutation: our
computation and the results of Dehant et al. (1996) deduced from the
diurnal pressure torque
estimates of the oceanic tidal angular momentum
(OTAM) which exist in the literature are based on nu-
merical models (Seiler 1991; Zhu et al. 1990) and most
recently on the models validated by altimetric observa-
tions (Chao et al. 1996). The diurnal tidal band is usu-
ally represented in the ocean models by the K1 , O1 , and
P1 waves. In order to estimate other diurnal terms, Wahr
and Sasao (1981) derived the ocean admittance function,
modi®ed later by Zhu et al. (1990) to account for the
observed value of the FCN period. Dehant and De-
fraigne (1997) computed the contributions of the OTAM
to the largest nutation waves from the results obtained
by Chao et al. (1996) using the afore mentioned admit-
tance function. We cite their estimates in Table 3a.
Since the strongest gravitational tide is the K1 tide
then the ocean tide should cause a signi®cant constant
pole o€set. Indeed, Gross (1993) found about 8 mas
(Table 3b), but this estimate should be considered as an
upper bound since it probably contains also a term re-
sponsible for the 18.6 year nutation. However, this
oceanic contribution to the constant pole o€set could
not be compared to observations since it is absorbed in
the de®nition of the CEP, as had been pointed out by
Gross (1993).
From Table 3 one can judge that generally the at-
mospheric contribution to nutation is roughly one order
of magnitude weaker than the e€ect of the ocean tide
with the exception of the annual prograde component.
This con®rms the fact mentioned at the beginning of this
section indicating that the e€ects of those two geo-
physical ¯uids on nutation could be, to some extent,
separated.
2.5 Comparison with the VLBI observations
We compared in Table 3 the atmospheric contribution
to the nutation amplitudes, after taking into account the
ocean tide e€ect, with the empirical corrections to the
IAU 1980 nutation model derived from VLBI observa-
tions. These corrections are computed here as di€erences
569
between the IERS 1996 and IAU 1980 precession/
nutation models. Our purpose is not to explain the VLBI
observations since there exists a number of other
important contributions to nutation. The most up-to-
date summary of those e€ects can be found in Dehant
and Defraigne (1997). Our aim is to assess the role of
the combined atmospheric and oceanic contribution in
the nutation budget. From the comparison we con-
clude the following:
+1/3 year: the atmospheric contribution does not ex-
ceed a few las, the oceanic one was not accounted for
in our analysis, but the VLBI correction to the IAU
nutation theory is only about 20 las, which is com-
parable to the present accuracy level of the VLBI
observations.
+1/2 year: the oceanic e€ect is certainly dominant over
that of the atmosphere. It is by two orders of mag-
nitude larger than the atmospheric one in case of the
in-phase term and one order of magnitude in case of
the out-of-phase term. The combined atmosphere/
ocean contribution reduces the observed VLBI cor-
rection from ÿ606 and ‡510 to ÿ33 and ÿ25 las for
the in-phase and out-of-phase components, respec-
tively. However, it should be noted that the prograde
semiannual nutation is signi®cantly a€ected by other
geophysical e€ects, which are not taken into account
in the IAU 1980 precession/nutation theory. These
are the mantle anelasticity, non/hydrostatic mass re-
distribution in the mantle and other, totally
amounting to ÿ110 las for the in-phase term and
ÿ130 las for the out-of-phase one (Dehant and De-
fraigne 1997).
+1 year: in this case the atmospheric contribution ex-
ceeds that of the ocean tide which agrees with the
remark made in Sect. 2.4. Accounting for the com-
bined atmospheric and oceanic contribution reduces
the observed correction from ‡12 and ÿ124 las to ÿ8
and ÿ18 las for the in-phase and out-of-phase terms,
respectively. There is only a small, about 10 las,
mantle anelasticity correction to the in-phase term
(Dehant and Defraigne 1997).
) 1 year: in this case the atmospheric contribution is
more than one order of magnitude smaller than the
VLBI correction, whereas the oceanic e€ect is op-
posite in sign. Dehant and Defraigne (1997) recently
explained the in-phase component by e€ects of
mantle dynamics but there still remains an unex-
plained correction of about ÿ0.3 mas in the out-of-
phase term. As it follows from that work, the solid
Earth dynamics alone fails to account for this dis-
crepancy. Thus, the ocean seems to be one of the
reasonable candidates. Note that the power of the w1
ocean is at the necessary level, hence the discrepancy
can be attributed to the error of phase. In fact, the
w1 OTAM component was estimated indirectly from
other tidal terms using an approximation of the
oceanic admittance function, see Sect. 2.4 for details.
Thus, this correction may not be so certain as, e.g.,
in the case of the P1 component. Additionally, as
proposed by Bu€ett (1992, 1993), the electromag-
570
netic core-mantle coupling could contribute to the
out-of-phase term at the observable level.
Summarizing the foregoing description of combined
atmosphere/ocean diurnal forcing we conclude that the
unexplained part of the annual prograde term is
dominated by the atmospheric and oceanic e€ects,
which reduce the observed discrepancy to 15 las. This
is not the case of the semiannual prograde nutation
where other geophysical e€ects have the same order of
magnitude as the oceanic and atmospheric ones. Al-
though the observed discrepancy is diminished to about
30 las by the oceanic/atmospheric corrections, the
mantle anelasticity and nonhydrostatic mass redistribu-
tion corrections totally reach the level of 100 las. The
retrograde annual nutation is by far more complicated
due to its high sensitivity to the solid-Earth geophysical
modeling and to the possible inaccuracy of the oceanic
correction. Despite the mentioned problems, our esti-
mation of the atmospheric prograde annual nutation
receives an important observational con®rmation.
3 Time variability of the atmospheric nutations
3.1 Sliding-window method applied to the CEAM function
Results of the MEM spectral analysis presented in
Sect. 2.2 suggest that some of the four circular oscilla-
tions detected in the CEAM function v0 , prograde and
retrograde annual, prograde semiannual and prograde
terannual, are not stable in that their amplitudes and
phases can vary in time. This variability a€ects the
corresponding incremental nutations and makes their
modeling dicult. The parameters of the circular terms
and the ®rst-order polynomial, estimated in Section 2.3,
are average values over the period from 1979.0 to
1997.3. In this section we investigate how these param-
eters change in time during the whole period from
1968.0 to 1997.3 covered by the atmospheric data. We
®t, by least-squares analysis, the model of Eq. (6) with
the linear term reduced to a constant (v0sl ˆ 0), to 3-year
sliding window of data.
The estimated time variations of the model parame-
ters are plotted in Fig. 3. The terannual term is not
shown there because its amplitude is always below 5 las
and negligible. A ®rst general observation from Fig. 3 is
that the inverted barometer correction introduces sig-
ni®cant changes to di€erent terms of the data. It shows a
systematic shift of phase, ranging from ÿ100 to ÿ20
for the prograde annual term and about ÿ25 for the
prograde semiannual term, and is responsible for a
temporary phase jump in the retrograde annual term,
opposite in direction to that corresponding to the
CEAM function without the IB correction. Note also a
systematic di€erence between the constant pole o€sets
estimated in the IB and non-IB cases, about ‡50 las in
Dw sin e0 and ‡20 las for De (cf. also average di€erences
in Table 3). The IB correction also makes the parameters
less variable and more smooth; one exception is the
phase of the prograde annual term with a rapid negative
jump around 1975. A second general observation from
our computations (not shown in the ®gures) is that the
wind contributions are very stable in most cases, which
means that almost all variations shown in Fig. 3 come
from the pressure term of the CEAM function.
The prograde semiannual oscillation which is driven
mainly by the wind term of v0 , has a very stable phase
over the whole period, and quite stable amplitude with
only a small positive jump in 1978 and slightly higher
values over 1978±1987 introduced by the pressure term.
In the case of the prograde annual term there can be
observed a signi®cant discrepancy between the param-
eters estimated prior to and after 1979, with large
variations (about 70 las) in the ®rst part and rather
smooth behavior (variations less than 30 las) in the
second part. The third periodical constituent shown in
Fig. 3, the retrograde annual term, exhibits much larger
variations than the ®rst two (note the change of scale
on vertical axes), up to almost 200 las, and has much
bigger uncertainties. The reason is that the driving term
in the CEAM function is rather weak (see Fig. 1 and
Tables 1 and 2) but it is multiplied by high values of
the transfer function due to the proximity of the FCN
resonance.
Finally we note that the constant celestial o€set of the
pole caused by the atmosphere becomes more and more
stable over the last 10 to 15 years which, as in the case of
the other parameters illustrated in Fig. 3, may re¯ect the
improvement in quality of the meteorological data.
3.2 Comparison with the VLBI nutation data
An important point is that the time variations of the
nutation amplitudes, both of the in-phase and out-of-
phase terms, can be attributed solely to the geophysical
excitations. Hence, any positive correlation between
time variations of the atmospherically driven nutations,
reported in Sect. 3.1, and of the VLBI observations of
the nutation angles, would be a valuable con®rmation of
the reliability of both the CEAM data and our results. It
may also be possible to check whether the IB correction
to the ocean response makes this correlation higher or
lower with respect to the non-IB case. Such a compar-
ative analysis will be made in the present section.
First, we estimated variability of the observed nut-
ations by the use of a similar method to that applied in
Sect. 3.1. The input data is the time-series of the celestial
pole o€sets dw sin e0 , de with respect to the IAU 1980
conventional nutation model, obtained from the VLBI
observations. In order to get more reliable results, we
analyzed two di€erent series submitted to the IERS
(Charlot 1995): one produced by the Goddard Space
Flight Center (GSFC) obtained from the IERS Central
Bureau, courtesy of Dr. M. Feissel, the second from the
US Naval Observatory (USNO) copied from the USNO
ftp server. Our algorithm consists of two steps.
The ®rst step is a preliminary ``cleaning'' of the series
from the incremental terms of nutation. We applied to
the entire input series the procedure developed by Bi-
zouard (1995) in order to estimate by the least-squares
method the in-phase and out-of-phase corrections to the
 571

With IB correction

Phase 1/2 year prograde Phase 1 year prograde Phase 1 year retrograde
10 250

0
0
150

-10 -50
50
-20
-100 -50
-30

-40 -150 -150

1970 1980 1990 1970 1980 1990 1970 1980 1990

Amplitude 1/2 year prograde Amplitude 1 year prograde Amplitude 1 year retrograde
100 100 300

80 80
200

60 60
100
40 40
0
20 20

0 0 -100
1970 1980 1990 1970 1980 1990 1970 1980 1990

δψ sin ε, constant offset δε , constant offset

0 100

-50 50

-100 -0

-150 -50
1970 1980 1990 1970 1980 1990

Fig. 3. Variability of the atmospheric circular nutations and of the constant pole o€set, from a sliding-window estimation. Units are las for the
amplitude and the o€set, and degrees for the phase

largest 15 nutation constituents with the following pe-
riods: 18.6 years, 182.62 days, 13.66 days, 365.26 days,
9.3 years, 27.55 days, 121.75 days, 13.63 days, 9.13 days,
31.81 days, 27.09 days, 177.84 days, 14.77 days, 9.12
days, 9.56 days. Additionally we added to the model the
linear function and the FCN oscillation assuming con-
stant period and amplitude. Concerning the FCN peri-
od, there are di€erences among di€erent empirical
values (cf. Sect. 2.1). It is commonly believed that when
using Tf0 ˆ 431 days instead of the theoretical value
Tf0 ˆ 460 days in the transfer function, there is the best
agreement between the theoretical amplitudes and their
values derived from the VLBI observations (e.g., Gwinn
et al. 1986). On the other hand, the direct estimation
from the celestial pole o€sets yields lower values, in
some cases below 420 days (BrzezinÂski 1998). In the
present estimation we tried di€erent values between 415
and 435 days.
The second step is the sliding-window least-squares
analysis assuming a model consisting of the annual
prograde and retrograde, prograde semiannual, pro-
grade terannual, and retrograde FCN terms. We
adopted the window length of 5 years, which is a com-
promise between the time resolution of the estimated
variations and the need to resolve two complex sinusoids
with close periods, the annual retrograde, and the FCN.
Our results are compared to the atmospheric contribu-
tions in Fig. 4. Note the di€erences with respect to the
atmospheric estimates shown in Fig. 3: (1) the window
length is increased from 3 to 5 years in order to have
agreement with the VLBI data analysis, and (2) atmo-
spheric contribution is presented as the in-phase and
out-of-phase amplitudes instead of the amplitude and
phase with respect to the standard IAU argument. The
comparison is made for the nutation data after 1984
because earlier estimates are too noisy for our purpose.
572

CEAM contribution CEAM contribution amplified by factor 3

VLBI observations (USNO)
VLBI observations (GSFC)

1 year retrograde out-of-phase 1 year prograde out-of-phase 1 year prograde out-of-phase

50 100

200

100
-50 0

-100 -150 -100

1985 1990 1995 1985 1990 1995 1985 1990 1995
1 year retrograde in-phase 1 year prograde in-phase 1 year prograde in-phase
50 50

150

50
-50 -50

-50

-150 -150 -150

1985 1990 1995 1985 1990 1995 1985 1990 1995

Fig. 4. Time variations of the annual nutation estimated from two series of the VLBI observations and from the atmospheric CEAM functions.
Units are las

Only the annual terms of nutation are shown in Fig. 4
because, according to the considerations of Sect. 3.1, the
atmospheric contribution is negligible in the case of the
prograde terannual nutation and does not vary signi®-
cantly with time in the case of the prograde semiannual
nutation. All the correlation coecients given in the
following are computed for the USNO time-series of the
VLBI estimates.
From Fig. 4 it can be seen that there are similarities
between the time variations of the observed nutation
amplitudes and those derived from the atmospheric ex-
citation. Particularly striking is the case of the annual
retrograde in-phase term from 1989 to 1995 and the out-
of-phase term from 1990 to 1995. The correlation coef-
®cient between the atmospheric and VLBI curves is, in
the ®rst case, 0.85 with maximum 0.88 at lag +0.5 years,
and in the second case, 0.71 with maximum 0.90 at lag
+0.5 years. In the case of the prograde annual terms
there are similarities in shape but the atmospheric con-
tribution seems to be rather smooth in comparison to
the observed variations. Surprisingly, we obtained for
the out-of-phase amplitudes from 1989 to 1995 a cor-
relation coecient which is even higher than for the
annual retrograde nutation, namely 0.97. For the in-
phase amplitude the correlation coecient is 0.75 over
1990±1995 with maximum 0.84 at lag ÿ0:5 years. In
order to make a visual comparison easier, we applied to
the atmospheric annual prograde contributions the lin-
ear transformation with the ®rst-order coecient equal
to 3, and plotted results in the right diagrams. The
proximity of the atmospheric and VLBI curves over the
period 1990 to 1995 becomes almost perfect, and also
rather good over some earlier time-intervals.
While the foregoing comparison seems to be very
encouraging, one has to treat with caution the estimated
values of the correlation coecient, as well as the fact
that lagging the amplitude estimates by 0:5 year can
increase the correlation, which contradicts the physics.
Note that the curves representing time variations of the
nutation amplitudes are sampled once in 0:5 year, which
gives only 14 values from 1989 to 1995, and this number
is further reduced by lagging the series. Shortening the
sampling step does not change the estimated numbers
signi®cantly, and has no mathematical justi®cation be-
cause here the ``instantaneous'' annual amplitude is an
average value over the 5-year time-interval.
One can ask if the transfer function expressed by
Eq. (2) is not underestimated at the annual prograde

frequency. The only way to accomplish the linear
transformation described is to multiply by 3 the pressure
response coecient ap in Eq. (3). Note, however, that
after this modi®cation also the variations of the retro-
grade annual amplitudes will be ampli®ed about 3 times
and the agreement in the left-hand side diagrams be-
come worse, particularly for the in-phase term. Hence,
there must be some frequency-dependent e€ect which is
not taken into account in our transfer function. One
possible candidate is the dynamical oceanic response for
the atmospheric pressure variations.
We did the same comparative analysis (not shown in
Fig. 4) using the pressure term of the CEAM function
with the IB correction. All the correlations with the
VLBI data became lower, in some cases even negative.
The only exception is the out-of-phase prograde annual
nutation where the correlation remains the same as for
the non-IB case. We conclude that the IB correction is
not adequate for nearly diurnal variations. We should
use in this case either the original pressure term, as-
suming the rigid ocean response, or look for a more
re®ned model expressing the dynamical ocean response
for variable atmospheric loading. It is also worth noting
that the ocean does not react only to the atmospheric
pressure variations but also to the diurnal wind forcing.
Even if the wind itself is, in general, less important than
the pressure, the wind can induce changes in sea level
that are relatively more important (J. Wahr, private
communication). For completeness, we should also
mention that both the pressure and the winds would
cause ocean currents which could contribute to the ex-
citation, though taking into account the equations of
Sect. 2.1 we do not expect that this e€ect is signi®cant.
There is one more interesting observation concerning
the oceanic e€ects. As has been stated in Sect. 3.1, the
prograde semiannual CEAM oscillation which is driven
mainly by the wind term of v0 , has a very stable phase
over the whole period, and quite stable amplitude, but
the corresponding nutation amplitude computed from
the VLBI pole o€sets (not shown in the ®gures) exhibits
a rather strong variability, up to 0.1 mas. Therefore one
can conclude that the only agent which is most proba-
bly responsible for such variations is the P1 ocean tide,
and the variability of corresponding OTAM component
can be as large as 20% of its amplitude. The foregoing
reasoning may be considered indirect evidence of the
fact that the ocean response to the tesseral tidal po-
tential is not strictly harmonic but rather is a band-pass
process.
4 Summary and conclusions
We used a 29-year time-series of the four-times-daily
atmospheric angular momentum estimates obtained
recently in a frame of the common NCEP/NCAR
reanalysis project, to study the atmospheric contribution
to nutation. From the spectral analysis of the series (Fig.
1 and Table 1) we found that the only nutation
constituents which are a€ected at an observable level
are the annual prograde and retrograde, prograde
573
semiannual and, to a lesser extent, prograde terannual.
In addition, there is a nonnegligible atmospheric con-
tribution to the constant o€set of the pole. The
atmosphere is probably also the important excitation
source of the observed free core nutation, but this
problem will be a subject of the future study.
Based on the spectral estimates we modeled obser-
vations of the equatorial atmospheric angular momen-
tum as a sum of four complex sinusoids with periods
ÿ1 year, ‡1 year, ‡1=2 year, ‡1=3 year plus a ®rst-
order polynomial expressing zero-frequency peak in the
spectrum. Coecients of the model were determined by
the standard least-squares algorithm and multiplied by
the theoretical transfer function in order to estimate the
corresponding incremental nutations. Our results,
shown in Tables 2, 3, and Fig. 2, do not correspond to
the entire data set, but only to its last 18 years. We
noticed that the atmospheric excitation data are much
more stable since 1979, probably due to the substantial
noise reduction. Therefore after rejecting the earlier
data we expect to obtain more meaningful results. We
found the following atmospheric contributions to the
nutation amplitudes: 77 las for prograde annual, 53 las
for retrograde annual, 45 las for prograde semiannual
and only about 5 las for prograde terannual. In the ®rst
three cases these are small but observable e€ects which
should be taken into account in the new theory of
nutation. We also determined a constant o€set of the
celestial pole dw sin e0 ˆ ÿ86 las, de ˆ 77 las caused by
the atmosphere. Only the prograde semiannual com-
ponent of the model is driven mostly by the wind term
of the atmospheric angular momentum, while in all
other cases the dominating contribution is from the
pressure term. Contrary to the gravitational nutation,
in all cases with the exception of the retrograde annual
nutation, the out-of-phase term is much larger than the
in-phase one.
An important problem from the point of view of
modeling the atmospheric in¯uence on nutation is the
stability of the incremental amplitudes. We investigated
this problem by performing the sliding-window least-
squares analysis. A general observation from the anal-
ysis is that the wind contributions are stable in time.
That means almost all detected amplitude variations
shown in Fig. 3 are generated by the pressure term. A
striking feature is an anomalous behavior of the most
important atmospheric contribution to nutation, the
prograde annual term, prior to 1979. The largest vari-
ability is found in the case of the retrograde annual
wave, up to almost 200 las, which can be explained by
the proximity of the FCN frequency of resonance: small
variations of the atmospheric excitation are ampli®ed
after multiplication by high values of the transfer func-
tion. If the estimated atmospherically driven variations
of amplitude of the retrograde annual nutation are real,
then we can conclude that the precision limit for the
classical models of nutation, assuming constant or sec-
ularly changing in-phase and out-of-phase amplitudes, is
of the order of 0.1 mas.
The next step of the research was to introduce cor-
rections for the ocean tide in order to compare the at-
574
mospheric estimates with the VLBI determinations of
the nutation angles. This comparison was an important
veri®cation of our results for the following reasons. The
®rst one is that the atmospheric excitation series is
provided without information on the uncertainty in the
data. We know already much about the EAM accuracy
at longer periods including seasonal variations, but the
data reliability at nearly diurnal periods is not known.
By use of an empirical procedure we assigned some
uncertainties to the EAM data, but, as discussed in
Sect. 2.3, the formal errors of our estimates of the at-
mospheric in¯uence on nutation can be signi®cantly
lower than their true values. The second reason is that
the nutation transfer function derived by BrzezinÂski
(1994) on the basis of the dynamical theory of Sasao and
Wahr (1981), may not be fully adequate to the problem.
In particular, it contains two coecients ap , aw ex-
pressing sensitivity of the FCN mode to the pressure and
wind excitations [see Eqs. (2) and (3)], which are purely
theoretical quantities and never received observational
con®rmation. Finally, as seen from Tables 1, 2, 3 and
Figs. 1, 3, there are signi®cant di€erences between re-
sults obtained from the pressure terms with and without
the IB correction. It appears that our results favor the
non-IB oceanic response at the nearly diurnal frequen-
cies, unlike the case of the longer time scales, where the
IB-correction is proven to be valid.
The atmospheric contribution to nutation is generally
an order of magnitude weaker than the e€ect of the
ocean tide with the exception of the annual prograde
component (Table 3). In the latter case the in-phase
atmospheric contribution is ÿ9 and ÿ76 las versus the
oceanic corrections of ‡30 and ÿ30 las for the in-phase
and out-of-phase components, respectively. Accounting
for the combined atmosphere ‡ ocean diurnal forcing
explains 85% of the VLBI corrections to the IAU 1980
amplitudes of the annual prograde component. The re-
maining discrepancy is 15 las, approximately the current
precision for the nutation amplitudes estimated from
VLBI observations. In case of the prograde semiannual
and retrograde annual components, it is not possible to
separate the atmospheric/oceanic e€ects from the solid-
Earth geophysical contributions. At these frequencies
mantle dynamics plays an important role as shown by
Dehant and Defraigne (1997). Thus, the comparison of
the atmospheric/oceanic nutations to the observations is
not conclusive.
After accepting the assumption that all variability of
the observed nutation amplitudes, both of the in-phase
and out-of-phase terms, can be attributed to the geo-
physical forcing, we could learn much from the com-
parison of results obtained from the sliding-window
least-squares analysis of the atmospheric excitation and
VLBI data. We found (Fig. 4) a satisfactory correlation
between the variability of both the in-phase and out-of-
phase amplitudes of the annual retrograde nutation after
1989. Concerning the annual prograde nutation, there is
a good correlation in shape but the agreement in the size
of variation was obtained ®rst after multiplying the at-
mospheric contribution by the factor of 3. Such a
magni®cation could only be accomplished in our algo-
rithm by increasing coecient ap of the transfer function
given by Eq. (2) by a factor of three, but this, in turn,
would make the agreement of the annual retrograde
nutation worse. We concluded that there is probably a
frequency-dependent e€ect which was not taken into
account, either in the atmospheric data reduction or in
the transfer function Eq. (2), for instance the dynamical
response of the ocean to the atmospheric pressure vari-
ations. Our comparison indicates that considerably
better agreement with the VLBI data is obtained using
the pressure term which is not corrected for the ocean
response than after applying the IB correction. This is
one more argument supporting the thesis that the IB
correction is not reliable at nearly diurnal frequencies,
and we have to look for a more re®ned model expressing
the dynamical response to the diurnal atmospheric
pressure variations. Moreover, there can also be changes
in sea level that are driven by the diurnal wind forcing,
which are not negligible in the excitation balance of
nutation. Another observation concerning the oceanic
e€ects is that the variability of the semiannual prograde
nutation amplitude computed from the VLBI pole o€-
sets indicates that the oceanic response to the tidal po-
tential is not strictly harmonic but is rather a band-pass
process.
Acknowledgements. This research has been supported by the Pol-
ish National Committee for Scienti®c Research (KBN) under
grants No. 9 S605 022 07 and No. 9 T12E 019 12. One of us (CB)
was ®nanced by a fellowship in the framework of bilateral French-
Polish agreement for the period of his work at the SRC. We thank
Dr. David Salstein and Mr. Peter Nelson of the IERS Sub-bureau
for Atmospheric Angular Momentum for providing the atmo-
spheric angular momentum data. We are also indebted to Dr.
VeÂronique Dehant, Dr. Dennis McCarthy, and Prof. John Wahr
for their careful reviews which helped us to improve the paper.
Appendix A
Seasonal modulation of the thermal atmospheric tide S1
The S1 diurnal tide of the atmospheric EAM function v
can be expressed in the terrestrial frame as
v…t† ˆ AeÿiX…1ÿ1=366:26†t …11†
where A is the complex amplitude expressing both the
amplitude and the phase of oscillation, X denotes
diurnal sidereal frequency and t stands for time.
Equation (11) can be transformed to the celestial frame
by multiplying by the sidereal rotation factor eiXt which
yields
v0 …t† ˆ AeiX=366:26t …12†
a prograde annual oscillation in the atmospheric CEAM
function v0 . Intuitively speaking, the S1 tide is ®xed to
the Sun.
Let us assume now that the amplitude A is not con-
stant but undergoes an elliptical annual modulation:

A ˆ A0 ‡ A‡ eiX=366:26t ‡ Aÿ eÿiX=366:26t …
After substituting into Eq. (11) we derive
v…t† ˆ Ao eÿiX…1ÿ1=366:26†t
‡ A‡ eÿiX…1ÿ2=366:26†t ‡ Aÿ eÿiXt …
that is a sum of prograde annual, prograde semiannual
and zero-frequency terms, as seen from space. In a
conventional notation these are the S1 , P1 , and K1 tidal
diurnal waves in the terrestrial frame, respectively.
In a similar way, assuming semiannual modulation of
the amplitude:
A ˆ A0 ‡ A‡ ei2X=366:26t ‡ Aÿ eÿi2X=366:26t …
we derive
v…t† ˆ A0 eÿiX…1ÿ1=366:26†t
‡ A‡ eÿiX…1ÿ3=366:26†t ‡ Aÿ eÿiX…1‡1=366:26†t …
This is a sum of prograde annual, prograde terannual
and retrograde annual terms, as seen from space,
corresponding to the S1 , p1 , and w1 tidal diurnal waves
in the terrestrial frame, respectively.
Appendix B
Computation of the CEAM function v0
The CEAM function is de®ned by
v0 ˆ v01 ‡ iv02 ˆ ÿeiU …v1 ‡ iv2 † …
0p
and similar expressions for the pressure term v and for
the wind term v0 w (BrzezinÂski 1994; BrzezinÂski and
Capitaine 1993). In order to evaluate v0 , the Greenwich
sidereal time U has to be calculated for each date of the
four-times-daily EAM series. Each record of the EAM
series contains the date in the form: calendar year,
month and hour which is 0, 6, 12, and 18 hours GMT.
First, this civil date was expressed in Modi®ed Julian
Days (MJD), and then we applied the standard proce-
dure of computing U, described, e.g., in Chapter 5 of the
IERS Conventions (McCarthy 1996):
U ˆ k
GMST ‡ Dw sin eA …
where eA denotes the obliquity, Dw is nutation in
longitude, k ˆ 2p=86400 is the conversion factor from
the sidereal rotation angle in time seconds to radians,
and GMST is the Greenwich mean sidereal time given by
the expression
GMST ˆ r… MJD ÿ ‰MJDŠ†86400
2
‡ d0 ‡ d1 Tu0 ‡ d2 Tu0 ‡ d3 Tu0
3
…
in which Tu0 ˆ du0 =36525, and du0 ˆ ‰MJDŠ ÿ 51544:5 is the
number of days elapsed since 12 hours UT1, 1 January
575
13† 2000, taking on values 0:5, 1:5, 2:5; . . . ; ‰MJDŠ
denotes the integer part of MJD, the coecients
are d0 ˆ 6h 41m 50s :54841, d1 ˆ 8640184s :812866, d2 ˆ
0s :093104, d3 ˆ ÿ6s :2  10ÿ15 , and
14† r ˆ 1:002737909350795
2
‡ 5:9006  10ÿ11 Tu0 ÿ 5:9  10ÿ15 Tu0 …20†
is the ratio of universal to sidereal time. As can be easily
checked, an alternative but numerically equivalent form
of Eq. (19) can be obtained by putting r ˆ 1 and
Tu0 ˆ …MJD ÿ 51544:5†=36525.
In practical computations we replaced the obliquity
eA by its mean value at J2000.0 e0 ˆ 8438100 :448 and
15† represented Dw only by the principal nutation term,
which gives an accuracy better than 10ÿ5 with respect
to the full expression. Also, by neglecting the second-
and third- order terms in the expansion given by Eq.
(19) and the ®rst and second-order terms in Eq. (20),
16† we introduce an error which does not exceed 10ÿ6 in 30
years.
Appendix C
Representation of nutations
The nutational motion of the CEP axis is classically
described in terms of two angles: nutation in longitude
Dw, that is displacement in the ecliptic plane of date, and
nutation in obliquity De, that is variation of inclination
with respect to the ecliptic plane of date. These two
angles are represented in the IAU 1980 conventional
17† model by a sum of 106 sinusoidal terms
X
106 X
106
Dw ˆ Dwj sin hj ; De ˆ Dej cos hj …21†
jˆ1 jˆ1
(Wahr 1981; Seidelmann 1982; McCarthy 1996, Chap.
5), where the amplitudes Dwj and Dej are constants with
a small time-dependent contribution modeled as a ®rst-
order polynomial of time, the arguments hj are integer
combinations of the ®ve fundamental arguments
(Brown's arguments) describing mutual celestial motion
of the Moon and the Sun, each of them being expressed
as a fourth-degree polynomial of time. The nutation
18† arguments can be expressed as
hj …t† ˆ kj t ‡ hj …t† …22†
where hj …t† does not di€er from a constant by more than
30 in 30 years. Hence, to a good approximation hj can be
considered as linear functions of time and Eq. (21) as a
standard harmonic expansion.
In more re®ned models taking into account inelas-
19† ticity or atmospheric and oceanic e€ects, it is necessary
to add to Eq. (21) the so-called out-of-phase terms. The
IERS 1996 model of precession/nutation (McCarthy
1996, Chap. 5), e.g., takes the following form
576

263 
X  and ``ÿ'' in aj correspond only to the sign of hj in the
Dw ˆ Dwip op
j sin hj ‡ Dwj cos hj …23† complex sinusoid, but do not de®ne whether the nutat-
jˆ1 ion is prograde or retrograde. The reason is an ambi-
263 
X  guity in adoption of hj which can always be replaced by
De ˆ Deip op
j cos hj ‡ Dej sin hj …24† ÿhj with simultaneous appropriate change of sign of the
jˆ1 nutation amplitude; see discussion preceding Eq. (30).
From the comparison of Eq. (27) with Eqs. (23) and
where the amplitudes Dwip ip
j and Dej of the in-phase (24), and using Eq. (25) we derive
terms, corresponding to Dwj and Dej in Eq. (21), are ÿ
linear functions of time, and Dwop op ip ip

j , Dej are the ampli- a‡ 1
j ˆ2 ÿDwj sin e0 ‡ Dej
tudes of the out-of-phase terms, which are assumed to be ÿ op

constant. This expression for the lunisolar e€ect is ‡ i12 ÿDwop j sin e0 ÿ Dej …28†
ÿ

further completed by adding a similar sum expressing aÿ 1 ip ip
j ˆ2 Dwj sin e0 ‡ Dej
the planetary in¯uence which is much less important ÿ op

than the lunisolar one and will not be considered here. ‡ i12 ÿDwop j sin e0 ‡ Dej …29†
The actual precession/nutation is a sum of the model
and the residuals dw, de which are routinely determined Equations (28) and (29) relate amplitudes a‡ ÿ
j , aj of the
by the VLBI technique. complex nutation representation of Eq. (27) to the
A convenient way of representing the nutational amplitudes of the classical expansions given by Eq. (21)
motion of the CEP, which is a two-dimensional process, and Eqs. (23), (24) for Dw, De. By changing the phase by
p
is to express it by the complex variable 2 with respect to hj in Eq. (27) we see that the real
parts of a‡ ÿ
j , aj are only due to the in-phase terms, while
P ˆ Dw sin e0 ‡ iDe ˆ X ‡ iY …25† the imaginary parts correspond to the out-of-phase
terms. Hence, when applying the IAU 1980 model of
that is a combination of the X and Y components of the nutation expressed by Eq. (21), a‡ ÿ
j and aj are real for all
CEP in the mean equatorial frame which is right-handed j, while for the IERS 1996 model the imaginary parts of
in the sense that its Y -axis is directed 90 E with respect a‡ ÿ
j and aj become di€erent from zero but are still much
to the X -axis, and e0 ˆ 8438100 :448 is the mean obliquity smaller than the real parts. In the case of the atmo-
at the reference epoch J2000.0 [kinematical details spheric nutations the out-of-phase contribution can be
concerning Eq. (25) are given by BrzezinÂski and Capit- signi®cant or even dominant.
aine (1993)]. Let us recall here the well-known fact that Eqs. (21)
Any single harmonic term in the complex plane XY and (23), (24) are ambiguous representations of nutation
can be expressed by the complex sinusoid in the sense that any hj can be replaced by ÿhj with a
simultaneous change of Dwip op ip
j , Dej for ÿDwj , ÿDej ,
op
z…t† ˆ z0 eirt …26† respectively. As an example, one can compare the an-
in which r denotes frequency, z0 ˆ reia represents the nual term in the IAU 1980 theory of nutation in the
initial value at t ˆ 0, r ˆ jzj is the radius and a expresses original formulation (Seidelmann 1982) and in that
the initial phase. Equation (26) describes circular presented recently in the IERS Conventions (McCarthy
motion, prograde (counterclockwise) for r > 0 and 1996). Fortunately, Eq. (27) is not sensitive to this
retrograde (clockwise) for r < 0. We also often speak change of the sign convention because, according to
about prograde and retrograde frequencies in sense the Eqs. (28) and (29), it causes an interchange of a‡ ÿ
j with aj
already described above. Each nutation represented by which results only in changing the order of the two
Eq. (25) is an elliptical motion [assuming hj …t† ˆ const: complex sinusoidal terms in Eq. (27).
in Eq. (25), which is almost the case] which can be Let us consider now a single circular term of nutation
expressed as the following sum of two circular motions 

with opposite frequencies Pj …t† ˆ iaj eisj hj ˆ iaj eisj …kj t‡hj † …30†

Pj …t† ˆ a‡ i‰hj …t†‡p2Š

‡ aÿ ÿi‰hj …t†ÿp2Š where sj ˆ 1 or sj ˆ ÿ1. Its angular frequency is sj kj
j e j e
  and, in the case of the IAU 1980 model (aj real), its
ˆ i a‡j e
ihj …t†
‡ aÿj e
ÿihj …t†
…27† phase di€erence with respect to the argument sj hj is
either 90 , for aj > 0, or ÿ90 , for aj < 0. For the
(Bizouard 1995), where a‡ ÿ
j , aj are the amplitudes
models taking into account the out-of-phase terms (e.g.,
(complex, in general). Any constant change of phase the IERS 1996 model of precession/nutation) the
with respect to hj is allowed in Eq. (27), provided it is deviations of phase from 90 are very small. Physically
compensated by an appropriate change of the coe- this phase di€erence re¯ects the well-known fact that
cients a p
j . The reason for choosing 2 will be seen from
nutational displacement is always shifted in phase by 90
Eqs. (28) and (29) below. from the driving tidal torque.
When kj > 0 in hj [see Eq. (22)] then the ®rst term of The atmospherically driven circular nutation is ex-
Eq. (27) represents the prograde nutation and the second pressed as
term represents the retrograde nutation, while for kj < 0
the situation is reversed. Note that the superscripts ``‡'' Pja …t† ˆ Aj ei…sj hj ‡uj † …31†

where the amplitude Aj is a real and positive number. Its
phase di€erence with respect to the argument sj hj is uj
and the phase di€erence with respect to the IAU model
is either uj ‡ 90 or uj ÿ 90 .
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