The blue lines show daily variations in the the northern (upper panel) and southern (lower panel) annular mode indexes for the winter months of 1995-2004 (Dec.-Feb. and June-Aug., respectively). The red line shows the output of our stochastic "coin- flipping" model. The similarity in patterns suggests that the behavior of annular modes could be a consequence of random chance, such as the north-south motion of air mass caused by daily storm activity. (Jason Goodman, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)[back]
|
