Analysis and evolution of climatic dynamics during last fifty years in Sicily

Abstract

In the last years the Wavelet Transform has received a lot of attention for the ability to provide a time–frequency representation of analysed signals in the time domain. Such an advanced time-frequency analysis has been effectively applied in various fields, such as, for example, geophysics, astrophysics, telecommunications and climatology. The paper reports the results of the time series of temperature of some Sicilian weather stations. First, different methods have been applied in order to identify cycles and trends present in signals and then, by means of wavelet coherence analysis, a correlation between the cycles present in signals and the solar cycles such as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Finally, the capability of wavelet to highlight the breakdown or discontinuities contained in the signals, has been investigated.