Improved Models for Precession and Nutation
Abstract
The modeling of nutations and precession has advanced to the point where the rms of residuals between theory and the observational estimates from the Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) data of the past decade is only 0.16 mas in DELTA psi sin epsilon(sub 0) as well as in DELTA epsilon. Such a fit is provided by the MHB2000 nutation series (Mathews et al., 2000) based on geophysical theory with a few basic Earth parameters estimated by a fit to nutation-precession data, and its accompanying precession rate. A brief account of the series is presented along with an outline of the theoretical background and the geophysical information of interest obtained in the process of constructing the series. A series due to Shirai and Fukushima (2000) also gives a somewhat comparable fit to the data, improving on the IERS 1996 series, but it is essentially empirical and provides no geophysical insights.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 01, 2000
- Accession Number
- ADA435814
Entities
People
- P. M. Mathews
Organizations
- University of Madras