The clustering of polarity reversals of the geomagnetic field

Abstract

Often in nature the temporal distribution of inhomogeneous stochastic point processes can be modeled as a realization of renewal Poisson processes with a variable rate. Here we investigate one of the classical examples, namely the temporal distribution of polarity reversals of the geomagnetic field. In spite of the commonly used underlying hypothesis, we show that this process strongly departs from a Poisson statistics, the origin of this failure stemming from the presence of temporal clustering. We find that a Levy statistics is able to reproduce paleomagnetic data, thus suggesting the presence of long-range correlations in the underlying dynamo process.

arXiv comment4 pages, in press on PRL (31 march 2006?)

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• Reversals in nature and the nature of reversals
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• Are Triggering Rates of Labquakes Universal? Inferring Triggering Rates From Incomplete Information
• Inferring basic parameters of the geodynamo from sequences of polarity reversals
• Coexisting stochastic and coherence resonance in a mean-field dynamo model for Earth's magnetic field reversals
• Magnetic structure, dipole reversals, and 1/f noise in resistive MHD spherical dynamos
• Spectral properties of oscillatory and non-oscillatory α^2-dynamos