Detection of climate transitions and discontinuities by Hurst rescaling
Date
2021-12-20
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
International Journal of Climatology
Abstract
The method of Outcalt et al., based on work developed originally by Hurst, is re-examined to evaluate its efficacy in delineating changes in trends and identifying regime shifts in climatic-related time series. This technique is based on the concept of the normalized rescaled running sum where temporal changes in the Hurst exponent can be used to identify climatic trends from one regime to another as each regime has a characteristic distribution that differs from the statistical characteristics of the complete time series. An examination of the temporal change in the amplitude of the normalized rescaled running sum can be used as a method to identify these regime changes, which may be either real (i.e., a true climatic shift) or induced (i.e., through a change in measurement bias, station location, or other nonclimatic influence). Examples shown here focus on examining time series of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, Arctic thaw depth, the Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent, treeflow data from Lees Ferry (AZ), North Atlantic tropical cyclone frequency, and central England air temperatures.
Description
This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Legates, D. R., & Outcalt, S. I. (2022). Detection of climate transitions and discontinuities by Hurst rescaling. International Journal of Climatology, 1– 20. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.7502, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.7502. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions. This article may not be enhanced, enriched or otherwise transformed into a derivative work, without express permission from Wiley or by statutory rights under applicable legislation. Copyright notices must not be removed, obscured or modified. The article must be linked to Wiley’s version of record on Wiley Online Library and any embedding, framing or otherwise making available the article or pages thereof by third parties from platforms, services and websites other than Wiley Online Library must be prohibited.
Keywords
Arctic thaw depth, central England air temperatures, Hurst rescaling, integral trace, normalized rescaled running sum, North Atlantic tropical cyclone frequency, Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent, Pacific Decadal Oscillation, Treeflow
Citation
Legates, D. R., & Outcalt, S. I. (2022). Detection of climate transitions and discontinuities by Hurst rescaling. International Journal of Climatology, 1– 20. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.7502