Nonlinear aspects of sea surface temperature in Monterey Bay
Larry Breaker Moss Landing Marine Laboratories   Nonlinear
aspects of sea surface temperature (SST) in Monterey Bay are
examined, based on an 85-year record of daily observations from
Pacific Grove, California. Oceanic processes that affect the
waters of Monterey Bay are described, processes that could
contribute to nonlinearity in the record. Exploratory data
analysis reveals that the record at Pacific Grove is non-
Gaussian and, most likely, nonstationary. A more recent test for
stationarity based on a power law approximation to the slope of
the power spectrum indicates that the record is stationary for
frequencies up to ~8 cycles per year (~45 days), but
nonstationary at higher frequencies. To examine the record at
Pacific Grove for nonlinear behavior, third-order statistics,
including the skewness, statistical measures of asymmetry, the
bicorrelation, and the bispectrum, were employed. The
bicorrelation revealed maxima located approximately 365