Nonlinear Dynamics of the Great Salt Lake: Dimension Estimation

Abstract

We study the possibility that variations in the volume of the Great Salt Lake (GSL), a large, closed basin lake, may be described as a low‐dimensional nonlinear dynamical system. There is growing evidence for structure in the recurrence patterns of climatic fluctuations that drive western United States hydrology. Moreover, the time behavior of such lakes is generally more regular than that of the climatic forcing. This suggests the possibility that an analysis of the 144‐year, biweekly time series of the GSL volume may shed some light on the underlying dynamics of lake variations. Three methods (correlation dimension, nearest neighbor dimension, and false neighbor dimension) of estimating attractor dimension are applied and compared. The analysis suggests that the GSL dynamics may be described by a dimension of about four. Implications of such analyses relative to low‐frequency variations and colored noise and limitations of such analyses are discussed.