Online Program

Using Timescale Variation Measures to Measure Climate Change (309809)

Linlin Chen, Rochester Institute of Technology 
Chen Ding, University of Rochester 
*Yawen Ding, Cornell University 

Keywords: Timescale, Variation, Measures, Climate Change, Global Warming

A timescale is a length of time. Given a time series, the timescale variation shows the average range of time series values over a timescale. For example, given a series of daily high- and low-temperatures, the timescale variation for an n-day period measures the average difference between the highest and the lowest temperatures over all n-day periods. The variation increases as we increase the timescale.

Timescale variation measures the average degree of fluctuation of values in a time series as a function of timescales. In the poster presentation, we give the algorithm for computing the timescale variation and use it to measure the timescale temperature variation for past n years. Using 200 years of daily weather data of temperature highs and lows in Rochester, NY, we are able to calculate the timescale variation for each decade and make comparisons between them. The climate has evolved drastically due to global warming in recent years, and a hypothesis of the effect of global warming is the increasing frequency of extreme weathers. We analyze the timescale variation over time to see whether there is an increase in temperature variation in recent decades.