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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik
DY 4: Focus Session: Atmospheric and Climate Complexity
DY 4.1: Invited Talk
Monday, March 11, 2013, 15:00–15:30, H47
Environmental Superstatistics — •Christian Beck — School of Mathematical Sciences, Queen Mary, University of London, London E1 4NS, UK
Complex systems in driven nonequilibrium situations often consist of a superposition of various dynamics on well-separated time scales. Often one or several parameters (such as e.g. the local inverse temperature beta) fluctuate on a rather large time scale, much larger than the relaxation time of the local system, and one can then apply so-called superstatistical techniques. The basic idea is to have a superposition of two statistics, one given by ordinary statistical mechanics and the other one by that of the fluctuating parameter. The resulting marginal distributions typically have fat tails, which can be understood by methods borrowed from large deviation theory. The superstatistics concept has been recently applied to a variety of complex systems, in particular to the dynamics of tracer particles in turbulent flows, to traffic delay statistics, cancer survival statistics, and share price fluctuations. After a short review of the field I will describe some new results on environmentally relevant superstatistics, dealing with typical temperature distributions observed on Planet Earth, wind velocity fluctuations, as well as rainfall/flooding statistics.