Wang et al. (2025) Complex network approaches for identifying global drought teleconnection patterns

Identification

• Journal: Global and Planetary Change
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-09-30
• Authors: Wenliang Wang, Lei Zhou, Congcong He, Yongwen Zhang, Zhiqiang Gong, Na Ying, Panjie Qiao, Jian Wu, Hongquan Sun, Jingfang Fan
• DOI: 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2025.105093

Research Groups

• School of Geomatics and Urban Spatial Informatics, Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Beijing, China
• Data Science Research Center, Faculty of Science, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming, China
• Laboratory for Climate Studies, National Climate Research Center, China Meteorological Administration (CMA), Beijing, China
• State Key Laboratory of Environmental Criteria and Risk Assessment, Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, Beijing, China
• Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
• National Institute of Natural Hazards, Ministry of Emergency Management of China, Beijing, China
• School of Systems Science/Institute of Nonequilibrium Systems, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
• Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Potsdam, Germany

Short Summary

This study developed a novel complexity-based approach using a global extreme drought complex network to identify global drought teleconnection patterns, revealing major source and sink regions and an average propagation distance exceeding 11,000 km. The integrated approach provides insights into the complex, nonlinear, and asynchronous spatiotemporal associations of drought events.

Objective

• To effectively capture the complex, nonlinear, and asynchronous spatiotemporal associations among global drought events and identify their teleconnection patterns using a novel complexity-based approach.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Global
• Temporal Scale: 1901–2021, monthly resolution

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Event Synchronization (ES) method, Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) Lagrangian particle transport model
• Data sources: Monthly-scale Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) data

Main Results

• Identified major global drought source regions (out-degree >667) including northern and southern Africa, western Australia, central Europe, and central Asia.
• Identified key global drought sink regions (in-degree >863) such as the Tibetan Plateau (TP), Indonesia, central South America, and the Amazon Basin.
• Quantified the dominant directions and propagation distances of drought teleconnections across regions.
• Revealed that the average global drought propagation distance exceeds 11,000 km.
• Regions like the Tibetan Plateau and the Amazon exhibited high betweenness centrality, indicating their critical roles as hubs in the global drought propagation network.
• The integration of complex network analysis with the HYSPLIT model revealed previously unrecognized yet highly consistent physical mechanisms underlying drought occurrence and propagation.

Contributions

• Introduced a novel complexity-based approach for constructing a global extreme drought complex network to analyze teleconnection patterns.
• Applied the Event Synchronization method and network metrics to effectively capture complex, nonlinear, and asynchronous spatiotemporal associations of drought events, overcoming limitations of traditional methods.
• Integrated complex network analysis with a Lagrangian transport model (HYSPLIT) to conduct an in-depth investigation of drought propagation pathways, revealing underlying physical mechanisms.
• Provided valuable insights for the development of effective global drought prediction and mitigation strategies.

Funding

• Not specified in the provided text.

Citation

@article{Wang2025Complex,
  author = {Wang, Wenliang and Zhou, Lei and He, Congcong and Zhang, Yongwen and Gong, Zhiqiang and Ying, Na and Qiao, Panjie and Wu, Jian and Sun, Hongquan and Fan, Jingfang},
  title = {Complex network approaches for identifying global drought teleconnection patterns},
  journal = {Global and Planetary Change},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.1016/j.gloplacha.2025.105093},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2025.105093}
}