Oscillatory modes of extended Nile River records (A.D. 622–1922)

The historical records of the low‐ and high‐water levels of the Nile River are among the longest climatic records that have near‐annual resolution. There are few gaps in the first part of the records (A.D. 622–1470) and larger gaps later (A.D. 1471–1922). We apply advanced spectral methods, Singular‐Spectrum Analysis (SSA) and the Multi‐Taper Method (MTM), to fill the gaps and to locate interannual and interdecadal periodicities. The gap filling uses a novel, iterative version of SSA. Our analysis reveals several statistically significant features of the records: a nonlinear, data‐adaptive trend that includes a 256‐year cycle, a quasi‐quadriennial (4.2‐year) and a quasi‐biennial (2.2‐year) mode, as well as additional periodicities of 64, 19, 12, and, most strikingly, 7 years. The quasi‐quadriennial and quasi‐biennial modes support the long‐established connection between the Nile River discharge and the El‐Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon in the Indo‐Pacific Ocean. The longest periods might be of astronomical origin. The 7‐year periodicity, possibly related to the biblical cycle of lean and fat years, seems to be due to North Atlantic influences.

[1]  H. H. Prince Omar Toussoun,et al.  Memoire sur l'Histoire du Nil , 1926 .

[2]  H. Hurst,et al.  The Nile: , 1937, Nature.

[3]  Note on Fluctuations , 1971 .

[4]  F. Hassan.  Historical nile floods and their implications for climatic change. , 1981, Science.

[5]  D. Thomson,et al.  Spectrum estimation and harmonic analysis , 1982, Proceedings of the IEEE.

[6]  Fourier analysis of Nile flood levels , 1984 .

[7]  G. P. King,et al.  Extracting qualitative dynamics from experimental data , 1986 .

[8]  M. Ghil,et al.  Interdecadal oscillations and the warming trend in global temperature time series , 1991, Nature.

[9]  A note on fluctuations of the Nile river flood levels (715–1470) , 1991 .

[10]  R. Vautard,et al.  Singular-spectrum analysis: a toolkit for short, noisy chaotic signals , 1992 .

[11]  Rushdi Said.  The river Nile , 1993 .

[12]  Michael E. Schlesinger,et al.  An oscillation in the global climate system of period 65–70 years , 1994, Nature.

[13]  Michael E. Mann,et al.  Global interdecadal and century-scale climate oscillations during the past five centuries , 1995, Nature.

[14]  Jonathan M. Lees,et al.  Robust estimation of background noise and signal detection in climatic time series , 1996 .

[15]  Leonard A. Smith,et al.  Monte Carlo SSA: Detecting irregular oscillations in the Presence of Colored Noise , 1996 .

[16]  G. Petts.  The River Nile: Geology, hydrology and utilization , 1996 .

[17]  Klaus Fraedrich,et al.  Multiscale detection of abrupt climate changes: application to River Nile flood levels , 1997 .

[18]  D. Sornette,et al.  Data-adaptive wavelets and multi-scale singular-spectrum analysis , 1998, chao-dyn/9810034.

[19]  Thierry De Putter,et al.  Decadal periodicities of Nile River historical discharge (A.D. 622–1470) and climatic implications , 1998 .

[20]  M. Ghil,et al.  Trends, interdecadal and interannual oscillations in global sea-surface temperatures , 1998 .

[21]  Carl Wunsch,et al.  The Interpretation of Short Climate Records, with Comments on the North Atlantic and Southern Oscillations , 1999 .

[22]  Rajagopalan,et al.  On the weakening relationship between the indian monsoon and ENSO , 1999, Science.

[23]  D. Sornette,et al.  Data-Adaptive Wavelets and Multi-Scale SSA , 2000 .

[24]  David H. Schoellhamer,et al.  Singular spectrum analysis for time series with missing data , 2001 .

[25]  Eduardo Damasio Da Costa,et al.  The 7.7‐year North Atlantic Oscillation , 2002 .

[26]  Michael Ghil,et al.  ADVANCED SPECTRAL METHODS FOR CLIMATIC TIME SERIES , 2002 .

[27]  J. Vaquero,et al.  A 250‐year cycle in naked‐eye observations of sunspots , 2002 .

[28]  M. Mann.  Large-Scale Climate Variability and Connections with the Middle East in Past Centuries , 2002 .

[29]  J. Overpeck,et al.  Abrupt climate change. , 2004, Science.

[30]  A. Matthews,et al.  Intraseasonal variability over tropical Africa during northern summer , 2004 .

[31]  S. Al-Moghrabi,et al.  Increased seasonality in Middle East temperatures during the last interglacial period , 2004, Nature.

[32]  Michael Ghil,et al.  Low‐frequency variability of the large‐scale ocean circulation: A dynamical systems approach , 2005 .

[33]  Michael Ghil,et al.  Homoclinic bifurcations in the quasi-geostrophic double-gyre circulation , 2005 .