In Part I a method has been developed for the integration of the electromagnetic field equations in the presence of fluid motions in a spherical conductor. This analysis is here applied to an interpretation of the secular geomagnetic variations. A very brief survey of some of the observed features of the secular variation is first given. It is pointed out that not only the phases but also the magnitudes of the harmonic components, including the main dipole, are subject to large changes at the present time. There follows a brief study of the skin effect which indicates that the observed variations of the dipole terms originate in a layer adjacent to the core's boundary several hundred kilometers deep; those of the higher terms originate in a layer no more than 200 km deep. Next, the "coupling matrix" introduced in Part I is evaluated in form of a table of all matrix elements that contain vectors of dipole and quadrupole type but no higher harmonics. It is shown that a zonal fluid motion (zonal toroidal flow in the terminology adopted here) produces rotation of the tesseral magnetic dipole terms and also oscillatory changes in amplitude of these terms. There is one and only one type of matrix element that represents an interaction of the main magnetic dipole with itself; the corresponding fluid motion is a meridional flow (poloidal flow) of quadrupole symmetry. With this term amplification or de-amplification occurs, depending on the sign of the velocity. The theory thus can account for all the observed components of the secular variation.

• Received 22 March 1946

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRev.70.202