Inferring causal relations from observational long-term carbon and water fluxes records

Abstract

Abstract Land, atmosphere and climate interact constantly and at different spatial and temporal scales. In this paper we rely on causal discovery methods to infer spatial patterns of causal relations between several key variables of the carbon and water cycles: gross primary productivity, latent heat energy flux for evaporation, surface air temperature, precipitation, soil moisture and radiation. We introduce a methodology based on the convergent cross-mapping (CCM) technique. Despite its good performance in general, CCM is sensitive to (even moderate) noise levels and hyper-parameter selection. We present a robust CCM (RCCM) that relies on temporal bootstrapping decision scores and the derivation of more stringent cross-map skill scores. The RCCM method is combined with the information-geometric causal inference (IGCI) method to address the problem of strong and instantaneous variable coupling, another important and long-standing issue of CCM. The proposed methodology allows to derive spatially explicit global maps of causal relations between the involved variables and retrieve the underlying complexity of the interactions. Results are generally consistent with reported patterns and process understanding, and constitute a new way to quantify and understand carbon and water fluxes interactions.