Temporal

Gravity
Variations

Temporal Gravity
Variation

Gravity changes with time may be divided into

effects due to:
A. A time dependent Gravitational Constant and
variations of the Earth's Rotation.
B. Tidal accelerations and Tidal Potential
C. Variations caused by terrestrial mass
displacements.

 Newton's law of universal gravitation states that an

attractive force F is set up between any two point
masses, varying proportional with the product of
the masses (1 and 2 ) and inversely proportional
with the distance l between the masses:
The gravitational constant is the proportionality
constant used in Newtons Law of Universal
Gravitation, and is commonly denoted by G.
G = 6.6738410-11 N m2 kg-2

 The earth's rotational vector is subject to secular,

periodic, and irregular variations, leading to changes
of the centrifugal acceleration z. In a spherical
approximation, the radial component of z enters
into gravity. By multiplying
with
( = geocentric latitude), we obtain:
Differentiation yields the effect of changes in
latitude (polar motion) and angular velocity (length
of day) on gravity:

 Tidal acceleration is caused by the superposition of

lunisolar gravitation (and to a far lesser extent planetary
gravitation) and orbital accelerations due to the motion
of the earth around the barycenter of the respective
two-body system (earth-moon, earth-sun etc.).
For a rigid earth, the tidal acceleration at a given point
can be determined from Newton's law of gravitation
and the ephemerides (coordinates) of the celestial
bodies (moon, sun, planets). The computations are
carried out separately for the individual two-body
systems (earth-moon, earth-sun etc.), and the results
are subsequently added, with the celestial bodies
regarded as point masses.

 Geometry of the Earth-Moon system

The configuration of the Earth-Moon system used for deriving the
properties of the tidal equilibrium is displayed in Figure 1. It follows from
the figure that
r+q=R

Figure 1: Illustration of the Earth-Moon system with the Earth to the left and the Moon to
the right (figure greatly out of scale). O, P and L are the centre of the Earth, an arbitrary
point on Earths surface and the centers of the Moon, respectively. r is the Earth's radius
vector (from point O to P), R is the position vector from the centre of the Earth to Moon's
centre (from O to L), and q is the position vector from an arbitrary point P on Earth's
surface to L. The line between O and L is sometimes called the center line and the angle the
zenith angle or the center angle.

 Centre of mass of the Earth-Moon system

The center of mass of the Earth-Moon system is
located along the center line OP at a distance xR (0 < x
< 1) from point O (Fig. 1). We then get that
or

Here and are the mass of Moon and Earth, respectively, see
Table 1. With mean values of r and R (Table 1), we get that
x 0.73 r

implying that the center of mass of the Earth-Moon system is

located about one quarter of Earth's radius from the surface of the
Earth.

Table 1. Mass of Earth, Moon and Sun

Mass of:

Symbol

Value

Earth

5.9741024 kg

Moon

7.3471022 kg

Sun

1.9891030 kg

 Gravitational forces and accelerations in the Earth and

Moon system
The gravitational force at the Earth's center because
of the presence of the Moon, , is
where R/R is the unit vector along the center line from Earth to
Moon.

According to Newton's second law, this force leads

to an acceleration at the center of Earth

Similarly, the gravitational acceleration at point

P caused by the Moon is
At point P, there is also a gravitational
acceleration g towards the center of the Earth caused by
Earth's mass:

By inserting the numerical values of G, MT and r

(appendix A), one obtains = 9.8/ 2 expected.
Furthermore, the equation above gives the relationship

 Tidal Acceleration
We consider the geocentric coordinate system to be moving
in space with the earth but not rotating with it (revolution without
rotation). All points on the earth experience the same orbital
acceleration in the geocentric coordinate system (see Fig. 2 for the
earth-moon system). In order to obtain equilibrium, orbital
acceleration and gravitation of the celestial bodies have to cancel in
the earth's center of gravity. Tidal acceleration occurs at all other
points of the earth. The acceleration is defined as the difference
between the gravitation b, which depends on the position of the
point, and the constant part , referring to the earth's center:
=

The tidal acceleration deforms the earth's gravity field

symmetrically with respect to three orthogonal axes with origin
at the earth's center. This tidal acceleration field experiences
diurnal and semidiurnal variations, which are due to the rotation
of the earth about its axis.

Fig. 2 Lunar gravitation, orbital acceleration, and tidal acceleration

If we apply the law of gravitation to

( = ), we obtain for the moon (m)

Here, =mass of the moon,

and and = distance to the moon as reckoned from
the calculation point P and the earth's center of gravity
respectively. We have = 0 for = . Corresponding
relations hold for the earth-sun and earth-planet systems.

 Laplace's tidal equations

When tidal forcing is introduced to the
(quasi)linearized version of the shallow water equations,
the obtained equations are known as Laplace's tidal
equations (LTE). Tidal flow is then described as the flow
of a barotropic fluid, forced by the tidal pull from the
Moon and the Sun. The phrase shallow water
equations" reacts that the wavelength of the resulting
motion is large compared to the thickness of the fluid.
The horizontal components of the momentum equation
and the continuity equation can then be expressed as:

(a)
(b)

(c)
In the above equations, t is the (prescribed) tidal forcing and
is the resulting surface elevation, h is the ocean depth.

The horizontal momentum equations are linear, but

inclusion of a friction term will typically turn the equations nonlinear. Likewise, the divergence terms in the continuity equation are
nonlinear because of the product uh and vh. Solution of LTE
requires discretization and subsequent numerical solution.

 The terrestrial gravity field is affected by

a number of variations with time due to
mass redistributions in the atmosphere,
the hydrosphere, and the solid earth.
These processes take place at different
time scales and are of global, regional,
and local character.

 Long-term global effects include postglacial

rebound, melting of the ice caps and glaciers, as
well as sea level changes induced by atmospheric
warming; slow motions of the earth's core and
mantle convection also contribute. Subsidence in
sedimentary basins and tectonic uplift are
examples of regional effects. Groundwater
variations are primarily of seasonal character,
while volcanic and earthquake activities are
short-term processes of more local extent.

 The magnitude of the resulting gravity variations

depends on the amount of mass shifts and is related
to them by the law of gravitation. Research and
modeling of these variations is still in the beginning
stages. Large-scale variations have been found from
satellite-derived gravity field models, but small-scale
effects can be detected only by terrestrial gravity
measurements. Simple models have been developed
for the relation between atmospheric and
hydrological mass shifts and gravity changes,
Generally, gravity changes produced by mass
redistributions do not exceed the order of 109 to
108 g.