Articles | Volume 18, issue 2
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00585-000-0247-z
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00585-000-0247-z
29 Feb 2000
29 Feb 2000

Letter to the editor: Are the North Atlantic Oscillation and the Southern Oscillation related in any time-scale?

R. García, P. Ribera, L. Gimenoo, and E. Hernández

Abstract. The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and the Southern Oscillation (SO) are compared from the standpoint of a possible common temporal scale of oscillation. To do this a cross-spectrum of the temporal series of NAO and SO indices was determined, finding a significant common oscillation of 6-8 years. To assure this finding, both series were decomposed in their main oscillations using singular spectrum analysis (SSA). Resulting reconstructed series of 6-8 years oscillation were then cross-correlated without and with pre-whitened, the latter being significant. The main conclusion is a possible relationship between a common oscillation of 6-8 years' that represents about 20% of the SO variance and about 25% of the NAO variance.

Key words: Meteorology and atmospheric dynamics (climatology; ocean-atmosphere interactions)