de Viron, O., H. Goosse, M. Crucifix, V. Dehant, and participating CMIP modeling groups, 2002:
Effect of the global warming on the length-of-day
Geophysical Research Letters, V. 29 .Abstract
The anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations in the Earth atmosphere will probably induce an elevation of the temperature, as well as important modifications of the global circulation in the Earth atmosphere and ocean. Due to the angular momentum conservation of the Earth-atmosphere-ocean system, it can be expected that the Earth rotation rate, and consequently the length-of-day (lod), will vary. By using the outputs of the models incorporated in the framework of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP 2), we reach the following conclusions: (1) the different models globally predict an increase of the lod of the order of 1 microsecond/year, (2) the effect is mostly associated with an increase of the wind term of the axial atmospheric angular momentum.