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E-book
Author Burroughs, William James

Title Weather cycles : real or imaginary? / William James Burroughs
Edition 2nd ed
Published Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2003

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Description 1 online resource (x, 317 pages) : illustrations
Contents 1. The search for cycles -- Social and economic preamble -- History of cycle-searching -- 2. Statistical background -- Time series -- Sampling -- Length of record -- Quality of data -- Smoothing: running means and filters -- Harmonic analysis and power spectra -- Red, white and pink noise -- Wavelet and singular spectrum analysis -- 3. Instrumental records -- Central England temperature record -- Other temperature series -- Rainfall records -- Chinese rainfall -- US rainfall and temperature patterns -- Nile floods -- Pressure patterns -- The Southern Oscillation -- Stratospheric winds -- Sunspots and the QBO -- Shorter-term cycles -- 4. Proxy data -- Dendroclimatology -- Varves -- Pollen records -- Corals -- A cautionary tale -- Ice cores -- Glaciers -- Ice ages and ocean sediments -- Other proxy measurements -- Predators and prey -- Economic series -- 5. The global climate -- Circulation patterns -- Radiation balance -- Prolonged abnormal weather patterns -- El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) -- Modelling El Nino and La Nina -- Forecasting ENSO behaviour -- Other interannual oscillations -- Intraseasonal oscillations -- The Great Ocean Conveyor -- 6. Extraterrestrial influences -- Solar variability: sunspots, faculae and coronal holes -- Tidal forces -- Physical links between solar and tidal variations and the weather -- Orbital variations
7. Autovariance and other explanations -- Non-linearity -- Natural atmospheric variability -- Climatic feedback mechanisms -- Extraterrestrial explanations -- Modelling the ice ages -- Devils Hole: a contrary view -- Stochastic resonance: chaos illuminated by flashes of lightning -- 8. Nothing more than chaos? -- Chaos theory -- Future changes -- Measures of variability -- Sherman's statistic -- Fourier series and Fourier analysis -- Calculation of the coefficients of harmonic analyses -- Maximum entropy spectral analysis (MESA) -- Smoothing and filtering -- Wavelet analysis -- Singular spectrum analysis -- Noise -- Detrending and prewhitening
Summary "This updated new edition of Weather Cycles: Real or Imaginary? explores in detail the unresolved debate on the existence of weather cycles. The book examines the competing arguments for observed effects being due to natural variability, solar activity and the Earth's orbital parameters." "Weather Cycles: Real or Imaginary? provides a different perspective on one of the most difficult questions in the current global-warming debate: namely, just how much of the recent temperature rise can be attributed to natural causes? Only by understanding how the climate can change of its own accord, and whether observed shifts are a part of a set of predictable patterns, will it be possible to reach a reliable judgement on how much impact human activities are having. This book examines the complex analysis required to assess the evidence for cycles with a minimum of mathematics. Its comprehensive and balanced account will appeal to the student and expert alike."--Jacket
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 291-307) and index
Notes Print version record
Subject Meteorology -- Periodicity.
Climatology
climatology.
SCIENCE -- Earth Sciences -- Meteorology & Climatology.
Climatology
Meteorology -- Periodicity
Klimazyklus
Periodizität
Wetter
Genre/Form Electronic books
Form Electronic book
ISBN 0511078498
9780511078491
9780511841088
0511841086