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As a by-product of the rising interest in the structural and dynamical characterization of networks in various scientific disciplines, complex network based methods have recently found wide use as an exploratory tool of data analysis across fields. In particular, functional networks encoding essential statistical interrelationships among multivariate time series have proven to be a versatile tool in climate sciences, neurophysiology and various other areas. In my talk, I will focus on some recent applications of functional network analysis in the field of climatology to highlight the potentials as well as ongoing challenges of such "climate network" approaches. As one particular example, I will demonstrate how the El Nino Southern Oscillation, the most prominent mode of tropical climate variability, is reflected in the global correlation structure of surface air temperatures. I will then present a straightforward methodological extension utilizing the idea of coupled networks and their appropriate structural quantification, and demonstrate the application of this idea to studying ocean-atmosphere interdependences in the Northern latitude extratropics during boreal winter.

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Reik Donner, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
Seminarraum Theoretische Physik (Altbau)
Contact: Joachim Krug