Statistical physics approaches to the complex Earth system

Global warming, extreme climate events, earthquakes and their accompanying socioeconomic

disasters pose significant risks to humanity. Yet due to the nonlinear feedbacks,

multiple interactions and complex structures of the Earth system, the understanding and,

in particular, the prediction of such disruptive events represent formidable challenges

to both scientific and policy communities. During the past years, the emergence and

evolution of Earth system science has attracted much attention and produced new

concepts and frameworks. Especially, novel statistical physics and complex networksbased

techniques have been developed and implemented to substantially advance our

knowledge of the Earth system, including climate extreme events, earthquakes and

geological relief features, leading to substantially improved predictive performances.

We present here a comprehensive review on the recent scientific progress in the

development and application of how combined statistical physics and complex systems

science approaches such as critical phenomena, network theory, percolation, tipping

points analysis, and entropy can be applied to complex Earth systems. Notably, these

integrating tools and approaches provide new insights and perspectives for understanding

the dynamics of the Earth systems. The overall aim of this review is to offer readers

the knowledge on how statistical physics concepts and theories can be useful in the field

of Earth system science.