Stability of Climate Networks with Time

TL;DR

This study constructs climate networks from satellite data, demonstrating their temporal stability and the influence of spatial embedding and physical coupling, with regional variations in stability.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of the stability of climate networks over time and across different altitudes and regions, highlighting the roles of spatial embedding and physical interactions.

Findings

Networks are stable with about 80% link consistency over time.

Approximately half of the stability is due to spatial embedding, half to physical coupling.

Equatorial regions exhibit lower network stability compared to non-equatorial regions.

Abstract

We construct and analyze climate networks based on daily satellite measurements of temperatures and geopotential heights. We show that these networks are stable during time and are similar over different altitudes. Each link in our network is stable with typical 15% variability. The entire hierarchy of links is about 80% consistent during time. We show that about half of this stability is due to the spatial 2D embedding of the network, and half is due to physical coupling mechanisms. The network stability of equatorial regions is found to be lower compared to the stability of a typical network in non-equatorial regions.