Geocenter variations caused by atmosphere, ocean and surface ground water

Abstract

The geocenter variations reflect the global scale mass redistribution and the interaction between the solid Earth and the mass load. Determination of the geocenter variations due to surface mass load from various geophysical sources places constraints on the variations of the origin of terrestrial reference frame, and provides the expected range of variations for space-geodesy. Our results suggest that on the time scale from 30 days to 10 years the primary variability of geocenter variations from atmosphere, ocean and surface ground water occurs on the annual and semiannual scales. The lumped sum of these surface mass load induced geocenter variations is within 1 cm level. Copyright 1997 by the American Geophysical Union.