Detection of oceanic Rossby waves in the extratropics by complex networks

Abstract

Abstract Complex network is a versatile tool for exploring the internal structures and dynamical properties of complex system. The Earth’s climate is a typical complex system, and the climate variability is mainly controlled by Sun–Earth interactions on planetary scales. The Earth’s rotation could induce Rossby waves, and the oceanic Rossby waves significantly affect the Earth’s climate in turn. In this study, climate network, a kind of complex network for climate sciences, has been applied to detect Rossby waves in extratropics of global oceans. The nodes of the climate networks are the regular grid points zonally distributed in four regions of global oceans (North Pacific, South Pacific, North Atlantic and South Atlantic-Indian), and the links represent the statistically significant cross-correlations of sea level anomalies. The results show that the westward propagation of oceanic Rossby waves in the extratropics could be detected by the climate network. Also, the climate network has the potential to detect the more oceanic dynamics.