Can we explain the post-2015 absence of the Chandler wobble?

Abstract

Abstract Recent polar motion data do not show a 6-year beat and indicate the absence of the Chandler wobble (CW), whereas we could observe the 6-year beat even in the 1920-40 s when the CW amplitude was known to be smallest. As a free mode, the CW needs excitation one or more sources that were debated decades ago but are now attributed to the atmosphere, ocean, and possibly land water. Here, we show that the anomaly started in 2015, after which two independent estimates of the atmospheric CW excitation became persistently smaller than before. However, the estimates of the oceanic and land–water contributions are too large, suggesting improved estimates are needed. Taking advantage of the recent CW anomaly, we show that the quality factor of CW is not as high as 100 as previously preferred. Although the CW excitation processes have been assumed random, a termination of near-resonant processes would rather be consistent with the present findings. Graphical Abstract

Keywords

• Chandler wobble
• Excitation process
• Quality factor
• Atmospheric angular momentum
• 6-year beat