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On the difference between the average values of B r ² in the Atlantic and Pacific hemispheres
Author(s) -
Walker Andrew D.,
Backus George E.
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/96gl01854
Subject(s) - southern hemisphere , northern hemisphere , geology , statistical analysis , null hypothesis , physics , statistics , mathematics , climatology
Recent work on reversals of the earth's magnetic field [ Clement , 1991; Constable , 1992; Laj et al., 1991; Runcorn, 1992] and work on low rates of change of the radial magnetic field, B r , in the Pacific hemisphere (see Jacobs [1994] page 8, for a summary) suggest that the statistics of B r differ between the Pacific and Atlantic hemispheres. The question of statistical invariance of the magnetic field is interesting in its own right [ Courtillot et al, 1992], and we study this hypothesis by investigating the statistical significance of the difference between the average value of B r ² in the Atlantic and Pacific hemispheres at three different radii. The differences between the average value of B r ² in the Atlantic hemisphere and the average value of B r ² in the Pacific hemisphere at all three radii are incompatibly large with two statistical models of B r . The differences are incompatibly large at two of three radii when a third statistical model is used. The results suggest that further work on the statistical properties of B r is warranted and provide another test for normality of spherical harmonic coefficients.