Research Catalog

Title

Weather cycles : real or imaginary? / William James Burroughs.

Author

Burroughs, William James.

Publication

Cambridge ; New York, NY, USA : Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xiii, 201 pages : illustrations; 26 cm

Summary

The unresolved debate on the existence of weather cycles is explored in detail within this book. The evidence for and against the existence of cycles in the weather is examined and the difficulties in establishing the credentials of cycles discussed. The competing arguments involve the natural variability of the climate, the influence of sunspots and the variations in the Earth's orbit. A wide range of events from the ice ages to the El Nino and many examples of apparently cyclic behaviour are presented, with evidence from both instrumental observations and other records such as tree rings, ice cores and ocean sediments. These data are set in the context of statistical analysis, global climatology and the predictability of complex non-linear systems (Chaos Theory). The general conclusion is that, with few exceptions, the case for cycles is not proven, but that further work on the origin of long term fluctuations in the weather is essential to the understanding of the current changes in the Earth's climate. The complex analysis needed to look at the evidence for cycles is examined with the minimum of mathematics, so that this book will appeal to readers with an interest in how the weather works, as well as to the workers in this important and controversial field.

Subject

• Meteorology > Periodicity
• Climatology
• climatology
• Klimazyklus
• Periodizität
• Wetter
• Wettervorhersage
• Zyklus
• Weer
• Klimaat
• Periodiciteit
• Changements climatiques
• Météorologie > Périodicité
• Climatologie

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 188-192) and index.

Contents

1. The search for cycles. 1.1. Social and economic preamble. 1.2. History of cycle-searching -- 2. Statistical background. 2.1. Time series. 2.2. Sampling. 2.3. Length of record. 2.4. Quality of data. 2.5. Smoothing: running means and filters. 2.6. Harmonic analysis and power spectra. 2.7. Red, white and pink noise -- 3. Instrumental records. 3.1. Central England temperature record. 3.2. Other temperature series. 3.3. Rainfall records. 3.4. Chinese rainfall. 3.5. US rainfall. 3.6. Nile floods. 3.7. Pressure patterns. 3.8. The Southern Oscillation. 3.9. Stratospheric winds. 3.10. Sunspots and the QBO. 3.11. Shorter term cycles. 3.12. Summary -- 4. Proxy data. 4.1. Dendroclimatology. 4.2. Varves. 4.3. A cautionary tale. 4.4. Ice cores. 4.5. Glaciers. 4.6. Ice ages and ocean sediments. 4.7. Economic series. 4.8. Summary -- 5. The global climate. 5.1. Circulation patterns. 5.2. Radiation balance. 5.3. Prolonged abnormal weather patterns. 5.4. The El Nino. 5.5. Modelling the El Nino. 5.6. Models of shorter term cycles. 5.7. Summary -- 6. Extraterrestrial influences. 6.1. Sunspots and solar activity. 6.2. Tidal forces. 6.3. Physical links between solar and tidal variations and the weather. 6.4. Orbital variations -- 7. Autovariance and other explanations. 7.1. Non-linearity. 7.2. Natural atmospheric variability. 7.3. Climatic feedback mechanisms. 7.4. Extraterrestrial explanations. 7.5. Modelling the ice ages -- 8. Nothing more than chaos? 8.1. Chaos Theory. 8.2. Future changes -- Appendix A Mathematical background. A.1. Measures of variability. A.2. Sherman's statistic. A.3. Fourier series and Fourier analysis. A.4. Calculation of the coefficients of harmonic analyses. A.5. Maximum entropy spectral analysis (MESA). A.6. Smoothing and filtering. A.7. Noise. A.8. Detrending or prewhitening.

ISBN

• 0521381789
• 9780521381789

LCCN

92005296

OCLC

• ocm25411380
• 25411380
• SCSB-8910942

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library