SPATIAL-TEMPORAL SCALING OF SURFACE AIR TEMPERATURE FIELDS

D. M. Sonechkin, R. Brojewski, N. N. Ivashchenko, and B. Jakubiak

Characteristics of spatial-temporal variability of the surface temperature fields over northern Eurasia and the neighboring North Atlantic are computed on the basis of instrumental observations from the middle of the 19th century to the end of the 20th century. The fields are represented by the traditional empirical orthogonal function expansion. The time scales are considered from one month up to 20 years. A spatial-temporal scaling is determined, i.e., a linear (on logarithmic scales) decrease of the eigenvalues with the increase of the time scale of the average field. This decrease is stronger, the larger the eigenvalue number. The existence of this scaling is corroborated by analysis of global and hemispheric mean temperatures and of the very long (from 1380) reconstruction of temperatures of northern and eastern China.