Published in
Elsevier, Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors, 3-4(164), p. 197-207, 2007
DOI: 10.1016/j.pepi.2007.07.001
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A statistical analysis of polarity reversals of the geomagnetic field
,
Frank Stefani,
Vincenzo Carbone ,
Giuseppina Nigro,
Fabio Lepreti,
Antonio Vecchio ,
Pierluigi Veltri
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Abstract
We investigate the temporal distribution of polarity reversals of the geomagnetic field. In spite of the common assumption that the reversal sequence can be modeled as a realization of a renewal Poisson process with a variable rate, we show that the polarity reversals strongly depart from a local Poisson statistics. The origin of this failure can be attributed to temporal clustering, thus suggesting the presence of long-range correlations in the underlying dynamo process. In this framework we compare our results with the behaviour of different models that describe the time evolution of the reversals.