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    Recurrence analysis of extreme event-like data
    (Katlenburg-Lindau : European Geophysical Society, 2021) Banerjee, Abhirup; Goswami, Bedartha; Hirata, Yoshito; Eroglu, Deniz; Merz, Bruno; Kurths, Jürgen; Marwan, Norbert
    The identification of recurrences at various timescales in extreme event-like time series is challenging because of the rare occurrence of events which are separated by large temporal gaps. Most of the existing time series analysis techniques cannot be used to analyze an extreme event-like time series in its unaltered form. The study of the system dynamics by reconstruction of the phase space using the standard delay embedding method is not directly applicable to event-like time series as it assumes a Euclidean notion of distance between states in the phase space. The edit distance method is a novel approach that uses the point-process nature of events. We propose a modification of edit distance to analyze the dynamics of extreme event-like time series by incorporating a nonlinear function which takes into account the sparse distribution of extreme events and utilizes the physical significance of their temporal pattern. We apply the modified edit distance method to event-like data generated from point process as well as flood event series constructed from discharge data of the Mississippi River in the USA and compute their recurrence plots. From the recurrence analysis, we are able to quantify the deterministic properties of extreme event-like data. We also show that there is a significant serial dependency in the flood time series by using the random shuffle surrogate method.
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    The role of atmospheric rivers in the distribution of heavy precipitation events over North America
    (Munich : EGU, 2023) Vallejo-Bernal, Sara M.; Wolf, Frederik; Boers, Niklas; Traxl, Dominik; Marwan, Norbert; Kurths, Jürgen
    Atmospheric rivers (ARs) are filaments of extensive water vapor transport in the lower troposphere that play a crucial role in the distribution of freshwater but can also cause natural and economic damage by facilitating heavy precipitation. Here, we investigate the large-scale spatiotemporal synchronization patterns of heavy precipitation events (HPEs) over the western coast and the continental regions of North America (NA), during the period from 1979 to 2018. In particular, we use event synchronization and a complex network approach incorporating varying delays to examine the temporal evolution of spatial patterns of HPEs in the aftermath of land-falling ARs. For that, we employ the SIO-R1 catalog of ARs that landfall on the western coast of NA, ranked in terms of intensity and persistence on an AR-strength scale which varies from level AR1 to AR5, along with daily precipitation estimates from ERA5 with a 0.25'spatial resolution. Our analysis reveals a cascade of synchronized HPEs, triggered by ARs of level AR3 or higher. On the first 3d after an AR makes landfall, HPEs mostly occur and synchronize along the western coast of NA. In the subsequent days, moisture can be transported to central and eastern Canada and cause synchronized but delayed HPEs there. Furthermore, we confirm the robustness of our findings with an additional AR catalog based on a different AR detection method. Finally, analyzing the anomalies of integrated water vapor transport, geopotential height, upper-level meridional wind, and precipitation, we find atmospheric circulation patterns that are consistent with the spatiotemporal evolution of the synchronized HPEs. Revealing the role of ARs in the precipitation patterns over NA will lead to a better understanding of inland HPEs and the effects that changing climate dynamics will have on precipitation occurrence and consequent impacts in the context of a warming atmosphere.
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    Interacting tipping elements increase risk of climate domino effects under global warming
    (Göttingen : Copernicus, 2021) Wunderling, Nico; Donges, Jonathan F.; Kurths, Jürgen; Winkelmann, Ricarda
    With progressing global warming, there is an increased risk that one or several tipping elements in the climate system might cross a critical threshold, resulting in severe consequences for the global climate, ecosystems and human societies. While the underlying processes are fairly well-understood, it is unclear how their interactions might impact the overall stability of the Earth's climate system. As of yet, this cannot be fully analysed with state-of-the-art Earth system models due to computational constraints as well as some missing and uncertain process representations of certain tipping elements. Here, we explicitly study the effects of known physical interactions among the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and the Amazon rainforest using a conceptual network approach. We analyse the risk of domino effects being triggered by each of the individual tipping elements under global warming in equilibrium experiments. In these experiments, we propagate the uncertainties in critical temperature thresholds, interaction strengths and interaction structure via large ensembles of simulations in a Monte Carlo approach. Overall, we find that the interactions tend to destabilise the network of tipping elements. Furthermore, our analysis reveals the qualitative role of each of the four tipping elements within the network, showing that the polar ice sheets on Greenland and West Antarctica are oftentimes the initiators of tipping cascades, while the AMOC acts as a mediator transmitting cascades. This indicates that the ice sheets, which are already at risk of transgressing their temperature thresholds within the Paris range of 1.5 to 2 ∘C, are of particular importance for the stability of the climate system as a whole.