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Spectral Methods: What They Can and Cannot do for Climatic Time Series

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Decadal Climate Variability

Part of the book series: NATO ASI Series ((ASII,volume 44))

Abstract

The analysis of time series — uni- or multivariate — is one of the high roads to our understanding of climatic variability. This classical field of study has recently been revitalized by the discovery and implementation of a number of new methodologies for extracting useful information from time series, as well as for interpreting the information so obtained in terms of dynamical systems theory. In this chapter, we describe the connections between time-series analysis and nonlinear dynamics, discuss signal-to-noise enhancement, and present some of the novel methods for spectral analysis. The various steps, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of these methods, are illustrated by their application to a well-known climatic time series, the Southern Oscillation Index. Open questions and further prospects conclude the chapter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France

    Michael Ghil & Pascal Yiou

  2. Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, Los Angeles, USA

    Michael Ghil

  3. Laboratoire de Modélisation du Climat et de l’Environnement, Saclay, France

    Pascal Yiou

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  1. Michael Ghil
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  2. Pascal Yiou
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Atmospheric Physics, Clarendon Laboratory, Parks Road, OX1 3PU, Oxford, UK

    David L. T. Anderson

  2. Institut für Meereskunde, Universität Kiel, Düsternbrooker Weg 20, D-24105, Kiel, Germany

    Jürgen Willebrand

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Ghil, M., Yiou, P. (1996). Spectral Methods: What They Can and Cannot do for Climatic Time Series. In: Anderson, D.L.T., Willebrand, J. (eds) Decadal Climate Variability. NATO ASI Series, vol 44. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-03291-6_11

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