Geological constraints on tidal dissipation and dynamical ellipticity of the Earth over the past three million years

Lucas J. Lourens (), Rolf Wehausen and Hans J. Brumsack
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Lucas J. Lourens: Faculty of Earth Sciences, Utrecht University, Budapestlaan 4
Rolf Wehausen: Institute of Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment (ICBM), Carl von Ossietzky-University Oldenburg, PO Box 2503
Hans J. Brumsack: Institute of Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment (ICBM), Carl von Ossietzky-University Oldenburg, PO Box 2503

Nature, 2001, vol. 409, issue 6823, 1029-1033

Abstract: Abstract The evolution of the Solar System has been shown to be chaotic1, which limits our ability to retrace the orbital and precessional motion of the Earth over more than 35–50 Myr (ref. 2). Moreover, the precession, obliquity and insolation parameters3,4 can also be influenced by secular variations in the tidal dissipation and dynamical ellipticity of the Earth induced by glacial cyclicity3,5,6,7,8,9,10 and mantle convection11. Here we determine the average values of these dissipative effects over the past three million years. We have computed the optimal fit between an exceptional palaeoclimate record from the eastern Mediterranean Sea and a model of the astronomical and insolation history3 by testing a number of values for the tidal dissipation and dynamical ellipticity parameters. We find that the combined effects of dynamical ellipticity and tidal dissipation were, on average, significantly lower over the past three million years, compared to their present-day values (determined from artificial satellite data and lunar ranging3,4,12). This secular variation associated with the Plio-Pleistocene ice load history has caused an average acceleration in the Earth's rotation over the past 3 Myr, which needs to be considered in the construction of astronomical timescales and in research into the stationarity of phase relations in the ocean–climate system through time.

Date: 2001
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DOI: 10.1038/35059062

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