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Pacific warm pool excitation, earth rotation and El Niño southern oscillations
Author(s) -
Yan XiaoHai,
Zhou Yonghong,
Pan Jiayi,
Zheng Dawei,
Fang Mingqiang,
Liao Xinhao,
He MingXia,
Liu W. Timothy,
Ding Xiaoli
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2002gl015685
Subject(s) - earth's rotation , western hemisphere warm pool , hydrosphere , rotation (mathematics) , atmosphere (unit) , environmental science , climatology , earth (classical element) , atmospheric sciences , geology , physics , geodesy , sea surface temperature , astronomy , meteorology , biosphere , geometry , mathematics
The interannual changes in the Earth's rotation rate, and hence in the length of day (LOD), are thought to be caused by the variation of the atmospheric angular momentum (AAM). However, there is still a considerable portion of the LOD variations that remain unexplained. Through analyzing the non‐atmospheric LOD excitation contributed by the Western Pacific Warm Pool (WPWP) during the period of 1970–2000, the positive effects of the WPWP on the interannual LOD variation are found, although the scale of the warm pool is much smaller than that of the solid Earth. These effects are specifically intensified by the El Niño events, since more components of the LOD‐AAM were accounted for by the warm pool excitation in the strong El Niño years. Changes in the Earth's rotation rate has attracted significant attention, not only because it is an important geodetic issue but also because it has significant value as a global measure of variations within the hydrosphere, atmosphere, cryosphere and solid Earth, and hence the global changes.