Lunar nutation effect defines the sign of the Earth rotation rate for now, but this may change soon

TL;DR

The paper demonstrates that lunar nutation significantly influences Earth's length-of-day variations, which are currently dominated by an 18.6-year signal, affecting future time scale adjustments.

Contribution

It reveals that lunar nutation impacts on LOD are underestimated and that long-term trends will be crucial for future extrapolations beyond 2030.

Findings

LOD variations are dominated by an 18.6-year lunar nutation signal.

Current LOD changes are primarily driven by lunar nutation, not long-term trends.

LOD is likely to vary between -1 ms and +1 ms until 2050.

Abstract

The Earth slowly decelerates in its rotation due to the energy dissipation caused by the interaction to the Moon. This leads to the continuous increasing of the length of the mean solar day (aka, length-of-day, or, LOD) relatively to 86400 solar seconds at average secular rate of +1.8 ms per century. But, on a shorter time scale the process is uneven. A positive leap second is used to be introduced on regular basis to support a consistency between the astronomical and atomic time scales. However, nowadays the LOD is steady sparking a discussion about the time scale maintenance, in particular, from the fears that a negative leap second will have to be introduced for the first time in the foreseen future. The aim is to show that the LOD is currently dominated by the 18.6-year lunar nutation signal whereas the long-term trends are essential for extrapolation after 2030. The LOD data since 1962 are used to estimate the long-term variations along to the 18.6-year and other harmonic signals in its spectrum. It is shown that the influence of the lunar nutation impact on the LOD variations was underestimated. At the moment the LOD changes are completely determined by a signal with a period of 18.6 years. More detailed extrapolation reveals that LOD is likely to vary in a range between -1 ms to +1 ms until 2050 or may be longer.