Spectral analysis is a technique of time-series analysis that decomposes signals into linear combinations of harmonic components. Rooted in the 19th century, spectral analysis gained popularity in palaeoclimatology since the early 1980s. This was partly due to the availability of long time series of past climates, but also the development of new, partly adapted methods and the increasing spread of affordable personal computers. This paper reviews the most important methods of spectral analysis for palaeoclimate time series and discusses the prerequisites for their application as well as advantages and disadvantages. The paper also offers an overview of suitable software, as well as computer code for using the methods on synthetic examples.

频谱分析是一种时间序列分析技术，可将信号分解为谐波分量的线性组合。光谱分析起源于 19 世纪，自 80 年代初以来在古气候学中广受欢迎。这部分是由于过去气候的长时间序列的可用性，还有新的、部分适应的方法的发展以及负担得起的个人计算机的日益普及。本文回顾了古气候时间序列光谱分析中最重要的方法，并讨论了它们应用的先决条件以及优缺点。本文还概述了合适的软件，以及在合成示例上使用这些方法的计算机代码。