The effects of mantle anelasticity on nutations, earth tides, and tidal variations in rotation rate

Abstract

We model the effects of mantle anelasticity on luni-solar nutations, on tidal deformation, on tidal variations in rotation rate, and on the eigenfrequency of the free core nutation. Our results can be used to invert observations to solve for the anelastic contributions to the shear and bulk moduli of the upper and lower mantle. We use specific anelastic models to numerically estimate the effects of anelasticity on these geodetic observables. We compare our nutation estimates with observational results. Among our conclusions: