Effect of a uniform sea‐level change on the Earth's rotation and gravitational field

Abstract

Global water redistribution between the oceans, atmosphere and continents causes changes in the Earth's rotation and gravitational field. To conserve water mass, the effect of the small uniform change in sea‐level must be considered. Explicit formulae are provided for these sea‐level corrections to the gravitational Stokes coefficients, polar motion and length of day. In two recent publications, this sea‐level correction term for polar motion was given incorrectly. These errors which arose from normalization conventions with the ocean function are corrected. Copyright © 1988, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved