Confidence intervals of a climatic signal.

Abstract

In order to interpret climate statistics correctly, the definitions of climate change, signal-to-noise ratio and statistical significance are clarified. It is proposed to test the significance of climate statistics by the use of confidence intervals, since they are more informative than merely testing the null hypothesis that the true response is zero. The confidence intervals of the mean difference, variance ratio and signal-to-noise ratio are formulated and applied to a climate sensitivity study.-from Author