@article{DongesDonnerRehfeldetal.2011,
  author    = {Donges, Jonathan Friedemann and Donner, Reik Volker and Rehfeld, Kira and Marwan, Norbert and Trauth, Martin H. and Kurths, J{\"u}rgen},
  title     = {Identification of dynamical transitions in marine palaeoclimate records by recurrence network analysis},
  series = {Nonlinear processes in geophysics},
  volume    = {18},
  journal   = {Nonlinear processes in geophysics},
  number    = {5},
  publisher = {Copernicus},
  address   = {G{\"o}ttingen},
  issn      = {1023-5809},
  doi       = {10.5194/npg-18-545-2011},
  pages     = {545 -- 562},
  year      = {2011},
  abstract  = {The analysis of palaeoclimate time series is usually affected by severe methodological problems, resulting primarily from non-equidistant sampling and uncertain age models. As an alternative to existing methods of time series analysis, in this paper we argue that the statistical properties of recurrence networks - a recently developed approach - are promising candidates for characterising the system's nonlinear dynamics and quantifying structural changes in its reconstructed phase space as time evolves. In a first order approximation, the results of recurrence network analysis are invariant to changes in the age model and are not directly affected by non-equidistant sampling of the data. Specifically, we investigate the behaviour of recurrence network measures for both paradigmatic model systems with non-stationary parameters and four marine records of long-term palaeoclimate variations. We show that the obtained results are qualitatively robust under changes of the relevant parameters of our method, including detrending, size of the running window used for analysis, and embedding delay. We demonstrate that recurrence network analysis is able to detect relevant regime shifts in synthetic data as well as in problematic geoscientific time series. This suggests its application as a general exploratory tool of time series analysis complementing existing methods.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{MarwanTrauthSchwarzetal.1999,
  author    = {Marwan, Norbert and Trauth, Martin H. and Schwarz, Udo and Kurths, J{\"u}rgen and Strecker, Manfred},
  title     = {Climate dynamics of varved pleistocene lake sediments in nw Argentina},
  issn      = {1029-7006},
  year      = {1999},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{DongesDonnerTrauthetal.2011,
  author    = {Donges, Jonathan Friedemann and Donner, Reik Volker and Trauth, Martin H. and Marwan, Norbert and Schellnhuber, Hans Joachim and Kurths, J{\"u}rgen},
  title     = {Nonlinear detection of paleoclimate-variability transitions possibly related to human evolution},
  series = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America},
  volume    = {108},
  journal   = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America},
  number    = {51},
  publisher = {National Acad. of Sciences},
  address   = {Washington},
  issn      = {0027-8424},
  doi       = {10.1073/pnas.1117052108},
  pages     = {20422 -- 20427},
  year      = {2011},
  abstract  = {Potential paleoclimatic driving mechanisms acting on human evolution present an open problem of cross-disciplinary scientific interest. The analysis of paleoclimate archives encoding the environmental variability in East Africa during the past 5 Ma has triggered an ongoing debate about possible candidate processes and evolutionary mechanisms. In this work, we apply a nonlinear statistical technique, recurrence network analysis, to three distinct marine records of terrigenous dust flux. Our method enables us to identify three epochs with transitions between qualitatively different types of environmental variability in North and East Africa during the (i) Middle Pliocene (3.35-3.15 Ma B. P.), (ii) Early Pleistocene (2.25-1.6 Ma B. P.), and (iii) Middle Pleistocene (1.1-0.7 Ma B. P.). A deeper examination of these transition periods reveals potential climatic drivers, including (i) large-scale changes in ocean currents due to a spatial shift of the Indonesian throughflow in combination with an intensification of Northern Hemisphere glaciation, (ii) a global reorganization of the atmospheric Walker circulation induced in the tropical Pacific and Indian Ocean, and (iii) shifts in the dominating temporal variability pattern of glacial activity during the Middle Pleistocene, respectively. A reexamination of the available fossil record demonstrates statistically significant coincidences between the detected transition periods and major steps in hominin evolution. This result suggests that the observed shifts between more regular and more erratic environmental variability may have acted as a trigger for rapid change in the development of humankind in Africa.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{MarwanTrauthVuilleetal.2003,
  author    = {Marwan, Norbert and Trauth, Martin H. and Vuille, Mathias and Kurths, J{\"u}rgen},
  title     = {Comparing modern and Pleistocene ENSO-like influences in NW Argentina using nonlinear time series analysis methods},
  year      = {2003},
  abstract  = {Higher variability in rainfall and river discharge could be of major importance in landslide generation in the north-western Argentine Andes. Annual layered (varved) deposits of a landslide dammed lake in the Santa Maria Basin (26°S, 66°W) with an age of 30,000 14C years provide an archive of precipitation variability during this time. The comparison of these data with present-day rainfall observations tests the hypothesis that increased rainfall variability played a major role in landslide generation. A potential cause of such variability is the El Ni{\~n}o/ Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The causal link between ENSO and local rainfall is quantified by using a new method of nonlinear data analysis, the quantitative analysis of cross recurrence plots (CRP). This method seeks similarities in the dynamics of two different processes, such as an ocean-atmosphere oscillation and local rainfall. Our analysis reveals significant similarities in the statistics of both modern and palaeo-precipitation data. The similarities in the data suggest that an ENSO-like influence on local rainfall was present at around 30,000 14C years ago. Increased rainfall, which was inferred from a lake balance modeling in a previous study, together with ENSO-like cyclicities could help to explain the clustering of landslides at around 30,000 14C years ago.},
  language  = {en}
}