Long-memory processes in global ozone and temperature variations

Global column ozone and tropospheric temperature observations made by groundbased (1964–2004) and satellite-borne (1978–2004) instrumentation are analyzed. Ozone and temperature fluctuations in small time-intervals are found to be positively correlated to those in larger time-intervals in a power-law fashion. For temperature, the 5 exponent of this dependence is larger in the mid-latitudes than in the tropics at long time scales, while for ozone, the exponent is larger in tropics than in the mid-latitudes. The ability of the models to reproduce this scaling could be a good test for improved predictions of future variations in ozone layer and global warming.