TY - JOUR A1 - Rheinwalt, Aljoscha A1 - Boers, Niklas A1 - Marwan, Norbert A1 - Kurths, Jürgen A1 - Hoffmann, Peter A1 - Gerstengarbe, Friedrich-Wilhelm A1 - Werner, Peter T1 - Non-linear time series analysis of precipitation events using regional climate networks for Germany JF - Climate dynamics : observational, theoretical and computational research on the climate system N2 - Synchronous occurrences of heavy rainfall events and the study of their relation in time and space are of large socio-economical relevance, for instance for the agricultural and insurance sectors, but also for the general well-being of the population. In this study, the spatial synchronization structure is analyzed as a regional climate network constructed from precipitation event series. The similarity between event series is determined by the number of synchronous occurrences. We propose a novel standardization of this number that results in synchronization scores which are not biased by the number of events in the respective time series. Additionally, we introduce a new version of the network measure directionality that measures the spatial directionality of weighted links by also taking account of the effects of the spatial embedding of the network. This measure provides an estimate of heavy precipitation isochrones by pointing out directions along which rainfall events synchronize. We propose a climatological interpretation of this measure in terms of propagating fronts or event traces and confirm it for Germany by comparing our results to known atmospheric circulation patterns. KW - Rainfall KW - Complex networks KW - Precipitation events KW - Anisotropy KW - Dominant link directions KW - Isochrones KW - Event synchronization Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-015-2632-z SN - 0930-7575 SN - 1432-0894 VL - 46 SP - 1065 EP - 1074 PB - Springer CY - New York ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ozturk, Ugur A1 - Malik, Nishant A1 - Cheung, Kevin A1 - Marwan, Norbert A1 - Kurths, Jürgen T1 - A network-based comparative study of extreme tropical and frontal storm rainfall over Japan JF - Climate dynamics : observational, theoretical and computational research on the climate system N2 - Frequent and intense rainfall events demand innovative techniques to better predict the extreme rainfall dynamics. This task requires essentially the assessment of the basic types of atmospheric processes that trigger extreme rainfall, and then to examine the differences between those processes, which may help to identify key patterns to improve predictive algorithms. We employ tools from network theory to compare the spatial features of extreme rainfall over the Japanese archipelago and surrounding areas caused by two atmospheric processes: the Baiu front, which occurs mainly in June and July (JJ), and the tropical storms from August to November (ASON). We infer from complex networks of satellite-derived rainfall data, which are based on the nonlinear correlation measure of event synchronization. We compare the spatial scales involved in both systems and identify different regions which receive rainfall due to the large spatial scale of the Baiu and tropical storm systems. We observed that the spatial scales involved in the Baiu driven rainfall extremes, including the synoptic processes behind the frontal development, are larger than tropical storms, which even have long tracks during extratropical transitions. We further delineate regions of coherent rainfall during the two seasons based on network communities, identifying the horizontal (east-west) rainfall bands during JJ over the Japanese archipelago, while during ASON these bands align with the island arc of Japan. KW - Extreme rainfall KW - Baiu KW - Tropical storms KW - Event synchronization KW - Complex networks Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-018-4597-1 SN - 0930-7575 SN - 1432-0894 VL - 53 IS - 1-2 SP - 521 EP - 532 PB - Springer CY - New York ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Agarwal, Ankit A1 - Marwan, Norbert A1 - Maheswaran, Rathinasamy A1 - Merz, Bruno A1 - Kurths, Jürgen T1 - Quantifying the roles of single stations within homogeneous regions using complex network analysis JF - Journal of hydrology N2 - Regionalization and pooling stations to form homogeneous regions or communities are essential for reliable parameter transfer, prediction in ungauged basins, and estimation of missing information. Over the years, several clustering methods have been proposed for regional analysis. Most of these methods are able to quantify the study region in terms of homogeneity but fail to provide microscopic information about the interaction between communities, as well as about each station within the communities. We propose a complex network-based approach to extract this valuable information and demonstrate the potential of our approach using a rainfall network constructed from the Indian gridded daily precipitation data. The communities were identified using the network-theoretical community detection algorithm for maximizing the modularity. Further, the grid points (nodes) were classified into universal roles according to their pattern of within- and between-community connections. The method thus yields zoomed-in details of individual rainfall grids within each community. KW - Complex network KW - Event synchronization KW - Rainfall network KW - Z-P approach Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2018.06.050 SN - 0022-1694 SN - 1879-2707 VL - 563 SP - 802 EP - 810 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER -