62
Vol. 79, No. 1, January 1998
ENSO provides a substantive addition to
the ENSO literature. In particular, the
statistical significance testing allows
greater confidence in the previous wave-
let-based ENSO results of Wang and
Wang (1996). The use of new datasets
with longer time series permits a more
robust classification of interdecadal
changes in ENSO variance.
The first section describes the datasets
used for the examples. Section 3 de-
scribes the method of wavelet analysis
using discrete notation. This includes a
discussion of the inherent limitations of
the windowed Fourier transform (WFT),
the definition of the wavelet transform,
the choice of a wavelet basis function,
edge effects due to finite-length time se-
ries, the relationship between wavelet
scale and Fourier period, and time series
reconstruction. Section 4 presents the
theoretical wavelet spectra for both
white-noise and red-noise processes.
These theoretical spectra are compared to
Monte Carlo results and are used to es-
tablish significance levels and confi-
dence intervals for the wavelet power
spectrum. Section 5 describes time or
scale averaging to increase significance
levels and confidence intervals. Section
6 describes other wavelet applications
such as filtering, the power Hovmöller,
cross-wavelet spectra, and wavelet co-
herence. The summary contains a step-
by-step guide to wavelet analysis.
2. Data
Several time series will be used for examples of
wavelet analysis. These include the Niño3 sea surface
temperature (SST) used as a measure of the amplitude
of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The
Niño3 SST index is defined as the seasonal SST av-
eraged over the central Pacific (5°S–5°N, 90°–
150°W). Data for 1871–1996 are from an area aver-
age of the U.K. Meteorological Office GISST2.3
(Rayner et al. 1996), while data for January–June 1997
are from the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) opti-
mally interpolated Niño3 SST index (courtesy of D.
Garrett at CPC, NOAA). The seasonal means for the
entire record have been removed to define an anomaly
time series. The Niño3 SST is shown in the top plot
of Fig. 1a.
Gridded sea level pressure (SLP) data is from the
UKMO/CSIRO historical GMSLP2.1f (courtesy of D.
Parker and T. Basnett, Hadley Centre for Climate Pre-
diction and Research, UKMO). The data is on a 5°
global grid, with monthly resolution from January
1871 to December 1994. Anomaly time series have
been constructed by removing the first three harmon-
ics of the annual cycle (periods of 365.25, 182.625, and
121.75 days) using a least-squares fit.
The Southern Oscillation index is derived from the
GMSLP2.1f and is defined as the seasonally averaged
pressure difference between the eastern Pacific (20°S,
150°W) and the western Pacific (10°S, 130°E).
1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000
-2
-1
0
1
2
3
(
o
C)
a. NINO3 SST
1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000
Time (year)
1
2
4
8
16
32
64
Period (years)
64.0
32.0
16.0
8.0
4.0
2.0
1.0
0.5
Scale (years)
b. Morlet
1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000
Time
ear
1
2
4
8
16
32
Period (years)
16.000
8.000
4.000
2.000
1.000
0.500
0.250
0.125
Scale
ears
c. DOG
FIG. 1. (a) The Niño3 SST time series used for the wavelet analysis. (b) The
local wavelet power spectrum of (a) using the Morlet wavelet, normalized by 1/
σ
2
(
σ
2
= 0.54°C
2
). The left axis is the Fourier period (in yr) corresponding to the
wavelet scale on the right axis. The bottom axis is time (yr). The shaded contours
are at normalized variances of 1, 2, 5, and 10. The thick contour encloses regions
of greater than 95% confidence for a red-noise process with a lag-1 coefficient of
0.72. Cross-hatched regions on either end indicate the “cone of influence,” where
edge effects become important. (c) Same as (b) but using the real-valued Mexican
hat wavelet (derivative of a Gaussian; DOG m = 2). The shaded contour is at
normalized variance of 2.0.
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