Dynamics of the Pole Tide and the Damping of the Chandler Wobble

Abstract

A dynamical model of the tide generated by the 14‐month Chandler wobble has been constructed. The model mimics the anomalous observations of this pole tide in the North Sea and Gulf of Bothnia. In the North Sea the model is based upon the linear dynamics of a viscous rotating ocean with a topographic gradient, and is closely akin to early viscous models of the Gulf Stream. The result is unfortunately extremely sensitive to the choice of physical parameters and so computation of the dissipation of pole tide energy is very difficult. For the North Sea, a best estimate is that the dissipation is 8 × 1010 ‐ 8 × 1011 erg s−1. Gulf of Bothnia dissipation is negligible. If the North Sea were typical of worldwide shallow seas, then the lowest Q for the wobble that can be obtained from oceanic damping is about 25. North Sea dissipation is probably unusually high however and it is suggested that the ocean is unlikely to be primary sink of energy, but it still cannot be ruled out. Copyright © 1974, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved