BenC said:
Thanks for the analysis.
You appear to suggest that the to and fro minuscule nature of the perturbations will cancel out making rotation uniform and constant for purposes of satellite synch.
1. Is there any evidence that the claimed perturbations occur at all?
Absolutely, and is the principle reason station-keeping fuel is required. In the "old days," this would usually involve some sort of chemical propellant, or for simplicity's sake, an H2O2 catalytic reaction.
2. If so, would a time lapse from a weather satellite not register the movements?
I'm not sure what you mean. Usually the orbits are simply monitorerd over time, and as the satellite slowly drifts off station due to the variety of factors, those factors are logged, along with the satellite's movements. We've become very adept at correllating the factors and predicting just what sort of nudge is required to return it to an orbit that will require negligible adjustments.
We can even predict the effects of the solar cycles, magnetic field reversals, and several other solar factors. What we can't predict well, if at all, is whether or a solar flare will fire
this way vs
that way, and that throws much of the error into the mix, not just the immediate effect of the flare on the satellite, but of the ancillary effects of the flare on our atmosphere, magnetic field, weather, and more, all of which play a role with respect to the effects of the various factors on satellite orbits.
In summary, we guess. It's a good game, and provided the sun remains predictible, we guess pretty darn good. But the sun is predictible only within certain limits, and the error of those limits of predictibility are proportional to the amount of extra fuel we must load for maneuvering purposes.