Abstract: | Data sets consisting of several combinations of classical and modern techniques (Doppler and laser ranging to artificial sattellites) have been analysed by autoregressive (AR), sinusoidal and autoregressive moving averag (ARMA) methods in order to obtain estimates of the frequency and quality factor of the Chandler component of polar motion. The ARMA method shows advantages over the other methods and the results obtained do not furnish evidence of temporal variation in these polar motion parameters. The disadvantages associated with smoothing the data sets and the difficulties as sociated with short time intervals for the data are cleary demonstrated. There is a great need for regular and long observational series obtained by the modern techniques. |