A Complexity View of Rainfall
Physical Review Letters, 88 (1):
018701+ (December 2001)DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.88.018701
Abstract
We show that rain events are analogous to a variety of nonequilibrium relaxation processes in Nature such as earthquakes and avalanches. Analysis of high-resolution rain data reveals that power laws describe the number of rain events versus size and number of droughts versus duration. In addition, the accumulated water column displays scale-less fluctuations. These statistical properties are the fingerprints of a self-organized critical process and may serve as a benchmark for models of precipitation and atmospheric processes.