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Synchrony

Synchrony asks when places, events, or biological responses move together. In CubeDynamics, it is a grammar:

raw cube -> state cube -> event result -> synchrony operator -> spatial summary

climate cube -> pair relationships -> local surfaces -> summaries / spatial scaling

That separation matters. A threshold rule should not be tangled up with a spatial comparison choice, and a center pixel should not define the whole idea of synchrony.

state cubes event catalogs occurrence severity timing duration local surfaces spatial decay biology coupling

Start Here

Theory Map

Ecological synchrony, Moran effects, event synchronization, climate networks, and compound events.

State and Events

Turn raw climate or biological values into standard state cubes and event catalogs.

Four Primitives

Compare occurrence, severity, timing, and duration with shared spatial modes.

Biology Coupling

Rasterize observations, align cubes, and compare lagged climate-biology states.

Local Climate-Tail Surfaces

Measure canonical cold/warm pairs, preserve local geography, choose a reduction, and characterize distance scaling.

Empirical Spatial Decay

Describe annular curves, fractional-decay distances, effective length, and multiscale slopes without forcing a hard radius.

Technical Report

Read or download the current scientific report and its detailed supplementary information.

The First Analysis

The states-and-events vignette uses observed PRISM minimum temperature to define severe-cold states, retain persistent events, and map occurrence synchrony with a reference cell. Its source, units, archive checksums, threshold, and plots are all reviewable.

Why Four Operators?

Two locations can be synchronized in one sense and independent in another:

  • Occurrence: did the state happen at the same times?
  • Severity: were magnitudes high together when both were active?
  • Timing: did matched events begin, peak, or end together?
  • Duration: did matched events persist for similar lengths of time?

The operators can disagree because they answer different questions. Publication examples are added only when a vetted observational dataset supports the stated comparison; exact truth cases remain in the test suite rather than serving as scientific illustrations.

Core Pattern

from cubedynamics import pipe, verbs as v

hot = (
    pipe(tmax_cube)
    | v.threshold_state(threshold=35, direction="above")
).unwrap()

events = (
    pipe(hot)
    | v.detect_events(state_var="state", min_duration=2, max_gap=1)
).unwrap()

occurrence = (
    pipe(hot)
    | v.occurrence_synchrony(spatial_mode="neighbors", radius_km=100)
).unwrap()

Read next: State and Events, then Four Primitives. For the climate-tail relationship branch, start with Local Climate-Tail Synchrony. The synchrony technical report provides the current scientific narrative, figures, validation record, and supplementary methods.