Spectral characteristics of instrumental and climate model surface temperatures

Abstract

The spatiotemporal temperature variability for several gridded instrumental and general circulation climate model data is characterized, contrasting power spectra of local and global temperatures, land and sea temperatures, and temperatures of different regions. There is generally a high degree of agreement between the spectral characteristics of instrumental and climate model data. All but the equatorial spectra exhibit a power-law shape and are hence more consistent with the spectra expected from long-memory processes than from short-memory processes. The power-law exponent b of the spectra is a measure of memory, or persistence, of the temperatures and is observed to be about twice as large for global temperature than for local temperatures. However, there are large variations, in particular between land and sea surface temperatures. This is shown by estimates of the spectra for different regions and global maps of b. It is also demonstrated that global spectra are related to local spectra via teleconnections between local temperatures.