arXiv:2605.00398cs.LGphysics.ao-ph2026-05

拓展因果发现方法,精准挖掘多变量时空网格数据中的局部因果关系。

M-CaStLe: Uncovering Local Causal Structures in Multivariate Space-Time Gridded Data

论文配图:M-CaStLe: Uncovering Local Causal Structures in Multivariate Space-Time Gridded Data
图 1 · 摘自论文原文
  • 通过联合建模变量内与变量间局部时空因果结构,扩展原有单变量方法。
  • 在低时间采样场景下仍能准确识别真实物理过程,如海洋-大气耦合相位依赖性。
  • 分解为反应图与空间图,保持网格级可解释性,适合气候等复杂系统研究。

针对高维网格化时空数据中因果图发现的挑战,现有方法受限于单变量分析。本文提出M-CaStLe,将原CaStLe的局部嵌入与父节点识别阶段扩展至多变量场景,联合建模变量内与变量间时空因果结构。通过限定候选父节点在固定大小的时空邻域内并聚合空间重复样本,提升有效样本量,使高维情形下的因果发现成为可能。进一步将所得多变量模板图分解为反应图与空间图,辅助复杂场景下的解释。在四个设定中验证:包含已知真值的多变量向量自回归基准、基于偏微分方程的物理参考结构验证、低时间采样条件下的大气化学案例研究,以及基于再分析数据的厄尔尼诺-南方涛动研究,成功识别出相位依赖的海气耦合关系。M-CaStLe在控制环境下更准确恢复多变量因果结构,在真实案例中揭示关键物理机制,推动多变量时空系统因果发现的发展,同时保持网格级可解释性。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Causal graph discovery for space-time systems is challenging in high-dimensional gridded data, which often has many more grid cells than temporal observations per cell. The Causal Space-Time Stencil Learning (CaStLe) meta-algorithm was developed to address that niche under space-time locality and stationarity assumptions, but it is currently limited to univariate analyses. In this work, we present M-CaStLe. M-CaStLe generalizes the local embedding and parent-identification phases of CaStLe to jointly model local within-variable and cross-variable space-time causal structures in gridded data. Like CaStLe, by constraining candidate parents to a constant-size space-time neighborhood and pooling spatial replicates, M-CaStLe increases effective sample size to make discovery tractable in high-dimensional settings. We further decompose the resulting multivariate stencil graph into reaction and spatial graphs to aid interpretation in complex settings. We study M-CaStLe in four settings: a multivariate space-time vector autoregression benchmark with known ground truth, an advective-diffusive-reaction partial differential equation verification problem with derived physical reference structure, an atmospheric chemistry case study in a low-temporal-sample regime, and an El Niño Southern Oscillation study on reanalysis data, identifying phase-dependent ocean--atmosphere coupling. Across these settings, M-CaStLe more accurately recovers multivariate causal structure in controlled settings and identifies important physical dynamics in real-world case studies. Overall, M-CaStLe advances causal discovery for multivariate space-time systems while retaining interpretability at the grid level.

因果发现时空建模多变量分析气候科学

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