A Global-Scale Investigation of Stochastic Similarities in Marginal Distribution and Dependence Structure of Key Hydrological-Cycle Processes

Abstract

To seek stochastic analogies in key processes related to the hydrological cycle, an extended collection of several billions of data values from hundred thousands of worldwide stations is used in this work. The examined processes are the near-surface hourly temperature, dew point, relative humidity, sea level pressure, and atmospheric wind speed, as well as the hourly/daily streamflow and precipitation. Through the use of robust stochastic metrics such as the K-moments and a second-order climacogram (i.e., variance of the averaged process vs. scale), it is found that several stochastic similarities exist in both the marginal structure, in terms of the first four moments, and in the second-order dependence structure. Stochastic similarities are also detected among the examined processes, forming a specific hierarchy among their marginal and dependence structures, similar to the one in the hydrological cycle. Finally, similarities are also traced to the isotropic and nearly Gaussian turbulence, as analyzed through extensive lab recordings of grid turbulence and of turbulent buoyant jet along the axis, which resembles the turbulent shear and buoyant regime that dominates and drives the hydrological-cycle processes in the boundary layer. The results are found to be consistent with other studies in literature such as solar radiation, ocean waves, and evaporation, and they can be also justified by the principle of maximum entropy. Therefore, they allow for the development of a universal stochastic view of the hydrological-cycle under the Hurst–Kolmogorov dynamics, with marginal structures extending from nearly Gaussian to Pareto-type tail behavior, and with dependence structures exhibiting roughness (fractal) behavior at small scales, long-term persistence at large scales, and a transient behavior at intermediate scales.