Changes in the Earth's rotation are deeply connected to fluid dynamical processes in the outer core. This connection can be explored by studying the associated Earth eigenmodes with periods ranging from nearly diurnal to multi-decadal. It is essential to understand how the rotational and fluid core eigenmodes mutually interact, as well as their dependence on a host of diverse factors, such as magnetic effects, density stratification, fluid instabilities or turbulence.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Geophys Res Solid Earth
April 2021
The cause for the damping of the Earth's free core nutation (FCN) and the free inner core nutation eigenmodes has been a matter of debate since the earliest reliable estimations from nutation observations were made available. Numerical studies are difficult given the extreme values of some of the parameters associated with the Earth's fluid outer core, where important energy dissipation mechanisms can take place. We present a fully 3D numerical model for the FCN capable of describing accurately viscous and Ohmic dissipation processes taking place in the bulk of the fluid core as well as in the boundary layers.
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