INDICATION OF A UNIVERSAL PERSISTENCE LAW GOVERNING ATMOSPHERIC VARIABILITY

study the temporal correlations in the atmospheric variability by 14 m eteorological stations around the globe, the variations of the daily m aximum temperatures from their average values. We apply several method s that can systematically overcome possible nonstationarities in the d ata. We find that the persistence, characterized by the correlation C( s) of temperature variations separated by s days, approximately decays C(s) similar to s(-gamma), with roughly the same exponent gamma congr uent to 0.7 for all stations considered. The range of this universal p ersistence law seems to exceed one decade, and is possibly even larger than the range of the temperature series considered.