Misinterpreted Seismic Evidence for Localized Rapid Changes of the Inner Core Boundary Surface

Abstract

The nature of the inner core (IC) temporal changes is of great importance in understanding the deep earth dynamics. The comment by Tian and Wen (2023, https://doi.org/10.1029/2023gl103173) on our previous paper (Yang & Song, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1029/2022gl098393) provided a new observation as evidence against the IC rotation and proposed that our observations are instead from localized rapid changes at the IC surface. Here we argue the opposite to its conclusions. The comment misinterpreted our logic and many of our observations and arguments. Its one new waveform does not contradict with the “rotation” model. The original evidence for the “surface” model is demonstrated to be an artifact from station clock errors and instrument changes. Additionally, the surface model lacks a solid physical and quantitative basis to explain existing seismic evidence. We conclude that the rotation model is currently the best interpretation and the surface model is not a viable alternative.