Statistical physics approaches to the complex Earth system

TL;DR

This paper reviews how statistical physics and complex systems science techniques, like network theory and critical phenomena, enhance understanding and prediction of complex Earth system events such as climate extremes and earthquakes.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of recent advances in applying statistical physics and complex systems approaches to Earth system science, highlighting new insights and predictive methods.

Findings

Improved understanding of Earth system dynamics.

Enhanced predictive performance for climate and seismic events.

Integration of statistical physics with Earth science models.

Abstract

Global climate change, extreme climate events, earthquakes and their accompanying natural disasters pose significant risks to humanity. Yet due to the nonlinear feedbacks, strategic interactions and complex structure of the Earth system, the understanding and in particular the predicting of such disruptive events represent formidable challenges for both scientific and policy communities. During the past years, the emergence and evolution of Earth system science has attracted much attention and produced new concepts and frameworks. Especially, novel statistical physics and complex networks-based techniques have been developed and implemented to substantially advance our knowledge for a better understanding of the Earth system, including climate extreme events, earthquakes and Earth geometric relief features, leading to substantially improved predictive performances. We present here a comprehensive review on the recent scientific progress in the development and application of how combined statistical physics and complex systems science approaches such as, critical phenomena, network theory, percolation, tipping points analysis, as well as entropy can be applied to complex Earth systems (climate, earthquakes, etc.). Notably, these integrating tools and approaches provide new insights and perspectives for understanding the dynamics of the Earth systems. The overall aim of this review is to offer readers the knowledge on how statistical physics approaches can be useful in the field of Earth system science.