If you wish to contribute or participate in the discussions about articles you are invited to join Navipedia as a registered user

# Pole Tide

Fundamentals
Title Pole Tide
Author(s) J. Sanz Subirana, J.M. Juan Zornoza and M. Hernández-Pajares, Technical University of Catalonia, Spain.
Level Intermediate
Year of Publication 2011

The instantaneous earth rotation axis shifts inside a square of about $20$ meters in relation to a point with fixed coordinates on the earth (i.e., Chandler wobble with a period of $14$ months). This entails a varying elastic response of the earth's crust. This has an effect smaller than $2.5$ centimetres in vertical and $0.7$ centimetres in horizontal, but must be taken into account if the observations are carried out over periods longer than two months.

From the IERS Conventions [Denis et al., 2004] [1], pages 83-84, the following expression [footnotes 1] can be derived for the displacement at a point of geocentric latitude $\displaystyle \varphi$ and longitude $\displaystyle \lambda$:

$\begin{array}{ll} \delta_{\hat{\mathbf r}}=&-\frac{\omega^2_E \, R_e}{2\,g}\,h \, \sin 2\varphi \left ( m_1 \cos \lambda + m_2 \sin \lambda \right ) \,\hat {\mathbf r}\qquad \\[0.3cm] \delta_{\hat{\mathbf \lambda}}= & -\frac{\omega^2_E \, R_e}{g}\, l \, \sin \varphi \left (-m_1 \sin \lambda + m_2 \cos \lambda \right ) \, \hat{\mathbf \lambda} \qquad \\[0.3cm] \delta_{\hat{\mathbf \varphi}}= & -\frac{\omega^2_E \, R_e}{g}\, l\, \cos 2\varphi \left (\, m_1 \cos \lambda + m_2 \sin \lambda \right )\, \hat{\mathbf \varphi}\qquad \end{array} \qquad\mbox{(1)}$

where ($\displaystyle m_1$,$\displaystyle m_2$) are the displacements (in meters) from the 1903.0 CIO, pole position, and $\displaystyle h= 0.6027$, $\displaystyle l=0.0836$ are the Love numbers.

Taking the earth's angular rotation $\omega_E= 7.29\cdot 10^{-5} rad/s$, the earth's equatorial radius $R_e=6378\cdot 10^3\, m$ and the gravitational acceleration $g=9.8\, m/sec^2$, it follows:

$\begin{array}{ll} \delta_{\hat{\mathbf r}}=&-32 \, \sin 2\varphi \left ( x_1 \cos \lambda + x_2 \sin \lambda \right ) \, \hat {\mathbf r}\qquad \mbox{(mm)} \\[0.3cm] \delta_{\hat{\mathbf \lambda}}= & -9 \, \sin \varphi \left (-x_1 \sin \lambda + x_2 \cos \lambda \right ) \, \hat{\mathbf \lambda} \qquad \mbox{(mm)} \\[0.3cm] \delta_{\hat{\mathbf \varphi}}= & -9 \, \cos 2\varphi \left (\, x_1 \cos \lambda + x_2 \sin \lambda \right )\, \hat{\mathbf \varphi}\qquad \mbox{(mm)} \end{array} \qquad\mbox{(2)}$

where ($\displaystyle x_1$,$\displaystyle x_2$) are the displacements (given in seconds of arc). Pole displacements can be found at ftp://hpiers.obspm.fr/iers/eop/eop.others.

The displacement $\displaystyle \delta$ is given in the radial, longitude and latitude $(\hat{\mathbf r}, \hat{\boldsymbol \lambda}, \hat{\boldsymbol \varphi})$ vectors (positive upwards, eastwards and northwards, respectively). Thus, the displacement vector in the (x, y, z) ECEF Cartesian coordinates is given by

$\left[ \begin{array}{c} \Delta x \\ \Delta y \\ \Delta z \end{array} \right]= \underbrace{\left( \begin{array}{ccc} \cos \lambda \cos \varphi & -\sin \lambda & -\cos \lambda \sin \varphi \\ \sin \lambda \cos \varphi & \cos \lambda & -\sin \lambda \sin \varphi \\ \sin \varphi & 0 & \cos \Phi \end{array} \right)}_{{\mathbf R}_3(-\lambda )\cdot {\mathbf R}_2(\varphi )} \left[ \begin{array}{l} \delta_{\hat{\mathbf r}}\\ \delta_{\hat{\mathbf \lambda}}\\ \delta_{\hat{\mathbf \varphi}} \end{array} \right] \qquad\mbox{(2)}$

Figure 1: Transformation from UEN $(\hat{\mathbf r}, \hat{\boldsymbol \lambda}, \hat{\boldsymbol \varphi})$ to TRS $(x,y,x)$ coordinates.

where ${{\mathbf R}_3(-\lambda )\cdot {\mathbf R}_2(\varphi )}$ are the rotations in latitude (1) and longitude (2) indicated in figure 1 (see Reference Frames in GNSS).

## Notes

1. ^ Notice the use of latitude $\displaystyle \varphi$ in equations (1 and 2), instead of the co-latitude $\displaystyle \theta$ used in the IERS equations.

## References

1. ^ [Denis et al., 2004] Denis, D., McCarthy and Petit, G., 2004. IERS Conventions (2003). IERS Technical Note 32.. IERS Convention Center., Frankfurt am Main.