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Next: 8.8.3 Pure random process Up: 8.8 Examples Previous: 8.8.1 Hourly measurements of

8.8.2 Hourly measurements of temperature

Figure 8.4 shows that the measurements of temperature for the same period have quite a different spectrum. The same processes can be detected, but their relative contributions are quite different. The diurnal cycle is even more prominent, and there is a strong annual cycle (at about 10-4 h-1) not present in the spectrum for the pressure. The short-wave contributions are not as dominant as they were for pressure; instead, there are stronger contributions with periods ranging from about 5-40 days and spanning the periods expected for long-wave weather systems. The variations with periods of a few hours make a much larger relative contribution to the temperature variance than to the variance in pressure.



 
Figure 8.4: Variance spectrum similar to that in the preceding figure, for hourly measurements of temperature.


 
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