Study of the Earth rheological properties from polar motion

Since the beginning of the 20th century, the observation of the Earth rotation variations through astro-geodetic techniques enables to investigate the global rheological properties of the Earth, in particular, the resonance parameters of the free rotation modes reflect the solid Earth anelasticity, the ocean response to an external forcing, and the properties of the fluid inner core, eventually of the solid inner core. Better constraints on these resonance parameters can be obtained by confronting the observed terrestrial motion of the rotation pole (the so-called polar motion) - including nutation as a retrograde diurnal polar motion - to the modeled excitation producing it. The more precise the modeled excitation and the observed polar motion are, the better theEarth rheological properties will be determined. For now, the best precision is reached in thenutation band. So, the analysis has been first dedicated to a direct adjustment of the nutation componentsfrom VLBI delays, then the adjustment of the resonance parameters in the transfer function between the observed nutation terms and the corresponding rigid nutation terms that reflects the luni-solar forcing. The obtained resonance parameters confirms in particular the shortening of the polar motion resonance period of about 40 - 50 day in the retrograde diurnal band. Then, we show that the dynamical behavior of the oceans in the diurnal band is mostly responsible for that. We also predicted a supplementary change of the resonance parameters in the vicinityof the free core nutation resonance, as expected from the solid Earth response, and confirmed by the adjustment of these parameters through the nutation terms. In addition to the nutation band, we revisit the estimation of the polar motion resonance parameters in the seasonal band, dominated by the Chandler wobble, in light of the most recent global circulation models of the hydro-atmospheric layers. Finally, we extend the investigation of polar motion resonance to theprograde diurnal polar motion, where the excitations mostly result from the ocean tides. We obtain a resonance period of about 393 days, and confirmed by our prediction based on the ocean tidal models. These results allow us to impose constraints on the frequency dependence of the Love number k2 and the Love number oceanic ko, characterizing respectively the response of the solid Earth and the oceans to an external potential of degree 2.