Long-term persistence in the sea surface temperature fluctuations

We study the temporal correlations in the sea surface temperature (SST) fluctuations around the seasonal mean values in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. We apply a method that systematically overcome possible trends in the data. We find that the SST persistence, characterized by the correlation C(s) of temperature fluctuations separated by a time period s, displays two different regimes. In the short-time regime which extends up to roughly 10 months, the temperature fluctuations display a non-stationary behavior for both oceans, while in the asymptotic regime it becomes stationary. The long-term correlations decay as C(s) similar to s(-gamma) with gamma similar to 0.4 for both oceans which is different from gamma similar to 0.7 found for atmospheric land temperature. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.