|
Subject will be restored when possible
|
|
J. L. Ballester Submitted: 2007-09-11 08:48
Many studies about the North-South asymmetry of solar activity and
its features have been performed by different authors. However, most
of these studies do not care whether or not the asymmetry of the time
series under consideration is statistically significant. Of course,
in the case the asymmetry is statistically insignificant, any
study about its behavior is meaningless. The main aim
of this study is to point out the difficulties found when trying to assess
the statistical significance of the North-South asymmetry (hereafter SSNSA) of the most
usually considered time series of solar activity.
First of all, we distinguish between solar activity time series
composed by integer or non-integer and dimensionless data, or composed by
non-integer and dimensional data. For each of these cases, we discuss
the most suitable statistical tests which can be applied and highlight the
difficulties to obtain valid information about the statistical
significance of solar activity time series.
Our results suggest that, apart from the need to apply the suitable
statistical tests, other effects such as the data binning, the
considered units and the need, in some tests, to consider groups of
data, affect substantially the determination of the statistical
significance of the asymmetry.
Our main conclusion is that the assessment of the statistical
significance of the N-S asymmetry of solar activity is a difficult
matter and that an absolute answer cannot be given, since many
different effects influence the results given by the statistical
tests. In summary, the quantitative results about the statistical
significance of the N-S asymmetry of solar activity provided by
different authors, as well as the studies about its behaviour, must be
considered with care because they depend from the chosen values of
different parameters or from the considered units.
Authors: M. Carbonell. J. Terradas, R. Oliver, J. L. Ballester
Projects: None
|
Publication Status: Accepted Astronomy and Astrophysics
Last Modified: 2007-09-12 06:36
|
 
 
|
|
|
|
Key
|
 | Go to main E-Print page. |
 | Download Preprint. |
 | Submitters Homepage. |
 | Edit Entry. |
 | Delete abstract. |
|
|
|