TY - JOUR
T1 - Earth rotation changes since −500 CE driven by ice mass variations
AU - Hay, Carling
AU - Mitrovica, Jerry X.
AU - Morrow, Eric
AU - Kopp, Robert E.
AU - Huybers, Peter
AU - Alley, Richard B.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank Roberto Sabadini and one anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments and feedback. This work was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (grants ARC-1203415 to REK and CH; ARC-1203414 to JXM; 1338832 and 0424589 to RBA; AGS-1304309 to PH).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2016/8/15
Y1 - 2016/8/15
N2 - We predict the perturbation to the Earth's length-of-day (LOD) over the Common Era using a recently derived estimate of global sea-level change for this time period. We use this estimate to derive a time series of “clock error”, defined as the difference in timing of two clocks, one based on a theoretically invariant time scale (terrestrial time) and one fixed to Earth rotation (universal time), and compare this time series to millennial scale variability in clock error inferred from ancient eclipse records. Under the assumption that global sea-level change over the Common Era is driven by ice mass flux alone, we find that this flux can reconcile a significant fraction of the discrepancies between clock error computed assuming constant slowing of Earth's rotation and that inferred from eclipse records since 700 CE. In contrast, ice mass flux cannot reconcile the temporal variability prior to 700 CE.
AB - We predict the perturbation to the Earth's length-of-day (LOD) over the Common Era using a recently derived estimate of global sea-level change for this time period. We use this estimate to derive a time series of “clock error”, defined as the difference in timing of two clocks, one based on a theoretically invariant time scale (terrestrial time) and one fixed to Earth rotation (universal time), and compare this time series to millennial scale variability in clock error inferred from ancient eclipse records. Under the assumption that global sea-level change over the Common Era is driven by ice mass flux alone, we find that this flux can reconcile a significant fraction of the discrepancies between clock error computed assuming constant slowing of Earth's rotation and that inferred from eclipse records since 700 CE. In contrast, ice mass flux cannot reconcile the temporal variability prior to 700 CE.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.epsl.2016.05.020
DO - 10.1016/j.epsl.2016.05.020
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84989837269
VL - 448
SP - 115
EP - 121
JO - Earth and Planetary Science Letters
JF - Earth and Planetary Science Letters
SN - 0012-821X
ER -