Abstract
By taking into account the variable free polar motion (PM) known as the Chandler wobble (CW) and irregular forced PM excited by quasi-periodic changes in atmosphere, oceans and land water (described by the data of effective angular momenta EAM), we propose a short-term PM forecast method based on the Holt-Winters (HW) additive algorithm (termed as the HW-VCW method, with VCW denoting variable CW). In this method, the variable CW period is determined by minimizing the differences between PM observations and EAM-derived PM for every 8-year sliding timespan. Compared to the X- and Y-pole forecast errors (ΔPMX and ΔPMY) of the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS) Bulletin A, our results derived from operational EAM can reduce ΔPMX by up to 38.4% and ΔPMY by up to 34.3% for forecasts ranging from 1 to 30 days. Further, we prove that using EAM forecast instead of operational EAM in the HW-VCW method can achieve similar accuracies.