Empirical evidences of persistence and dynamical chaos in solar–terrestrial phenomena

This paper presents a brief review of selected publications concerning dynamical chaos and persistence in various solar–terrestrial phenomena ranging from solar activity to climate dynamics. It draws attention to the advanced approaches known in many research areas (meteorology, hydrology, biology, economics, etc.), but not yet sufficiently used in solar–terrestrial physics. First, we introduce the concepts of dynamical (deterministic) chaos and fractional Brownian motion. Next, we discuss appropriate methods—fluctuation analysis and nonlinear time series analysis—for treatment of erratic time series based on these concepts. We outline some pitfalls and problems in the application of the discussed methods to empirical data. Finally, we present selected empirical evidence for persistence and dynamical chaos in solar activity, solar wind, magnetosphere and ionosphere, weather and climate systems.