No Arabic abstract
Emission metrics, a crucial tool in setting effective equivalences between greenhouse gases, currently require a subjective, arbitrary choice of time horizon. Here, we propose a novel framework that uses a specific temperature goal to calculate the time horizon that aligns with scenarios satisfying that temperature goal. We analyze the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 C Scenario Database 1 to find that justified time horizons for the 1.5 C and 2 C global warming goals of the Paris Agreement are 22 +/- 1 and 55 +/- 1 years respectively. We then use these time horizons to quantify time-dependent emission metrics. Using methane as an example, we find that emission metrics that align with the 1.5 C and 2 C warming goals respectively (using their associated time horizons) are 80 +/- 1 and 45 +/- 1 for the Global Warming Potential, 62 +/- 1 and 11 +/- 1 for the Global Temperature change Potential, and 89 +/- 1 and 50 +/- 1 for the integrated Global Temperature change Potential. Using the most commonly used time horizon, 100 years, results in underestimating methane emission metrics by 40-70% relative to the values we calculate that align with the 2 C goal.
In the analysis of empirical signals, detecting correlations that capture genuine interactions between the elements of a complex system is a challenging task with applications across disciplines. Here we analyze a global data set of surface air temperature (SAT) with daily resolution. Hilbert analysis is used to obtain phase, instantaneous frequency and amplitude information of SAT seasonal cycles in different geographical zones. The analysis of the phase dynamics reveals large regions with coherent seasonality. The analysis of the instantaneous frequencies uncovers clean wave patterns formed by alternating regions of negative and positive correlations. In contrast, the analysis of the amplitude dynamics uncovers wave patterns with additional large-scale structures. These structures are interpreted as due to the fact that the amplitude dynamics is affected by processes that act in long and short time scales, while the dynamics of the instantaneous frequency is mainly governed by fast processes. Therefore, Hilbert analysis allows to disentangle climatic processes and to track planetary atmospheric waves. Our results are relevant for the analysis of complex oscillatory signals because they offer a general strategy for uncovering interactions that act at different time scales.
Different definitions of links in climate networks may lead to considerably different network topologies. We construct a network from climate records of surface level atmospheric temperature in different geographical sites around the globe using two commonly used definitions of links. Utilizing detrended fluctuation analysis, shuffled surrogates and separation analysis of maritime and continental records, we find that one of the major influences on the structure of climate networks is due to the auto-correlation in the records, that may introduce spurious links. This may explain why different methods could lead to different climate network topologies.
Errors in applying regression models and wavelet filters used to analyze geophysical signals are discussed: (1) multidecadal natural oscillations (e.g. the quasi 60-year Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO)) need to be taken into account for properly quantifying anomalous accelerations in tide gauge records such as in New York City; (2) uncertainties and multicollinearity among climate forcing functions prevent a proper evaluation of the solar contribution to the 20th century global surface temperature warming using overloaded linear regression models during the 1900-2000 period alone; (3) when periodic wavelet filters, which require that a record is pre-processed with a reflection methodology, are improperly applied to decompose non-stationary solar and climatic time series, Gibbs boundary artifacts emerge yielding misleading physical interpretations. By correcting these errors and using optimized regression models that reduce multicollinearity artifacts, I found the following results: (1) the sea level in New York City is not accelerating in an alarming way, and may increase by about 350 mm from 2000 to 2100 instead of the previously projected values varying from 1130 mm to 1550 mm estimated using the methods proposed by Sallenger et al. (2012) and Boon (2012), respectively; (2) the solar activity increase during the 20th century contributed about 50% of the 0.8 K global warming observed during the 20th century instead of only 7-10% (IPCC, 2007; Benestad and Schmidt, 2009; Lean and Rind, 2009). These findings stress the importance of natural oscillations and of the sun to properly interpret climatic changes.
We construct and analyze climate networks based on daily satellite measurements of temperatures and geopotential heights. We show that these networks are stable during time and are similar over different altitudes. Each link in our network is stable with typical 15% variability. The entire hierarchy of links is about 80% consistent during time. We show that about half of this stability is due to the spatial 2D embedding of the network, and half is due to physical coupling mechanisms. The network stability of equatorial regions is found to be lower compared to the stability of a typical network in non-equatorial regions.
In high frequency financial data not only returns but also waiting times between trades are random variables. In this work, we analyze the spectra of the waiting-time processes for tick-by-tick trades. The numerical problem, strictly related with the real inversion of Laplace transforms, is analyzed by using Tikhonovs regularization method. We also analyze these spectra by a rough method using a comb of Diracs delta functions.