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Main Authors: Chen, Rui, Wu, Jinsong
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.10371
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author Chen, Rui
Wu, Jinsong
author_facet Chen, Rui
Wu, Jinsong
contents This study proposes Structural Gating and Effect-aligned Discovery for Temporal Causal Discovery (SGED-TCD), a novel and general framework for lag-resolved causal discovery in complex multivariate time series. SGED-TCD combines explicit structural gating, stability-oriented learning, perturbation-effect alignment, and unified graph extraction to improve the interpretability, robustness, and functional consistency of inferred causal graphs. To evaluate its effectiveness in a representative real-world setting, we apply SGED-TCD to teleconnection-driven compound heatwave--air-pollution extremes in eastern and northern China. Using large-scale climate indices, regional circulation and boundary-layer variables, and compound extreme indicators, the framework reconstructs weighted causal networks with explicit dominant lags and relative causal importance. The inferred networks reveal clear regional and seasonal heterogeneity: warm-season extremes in Eastern China are mainly linked to low-latitude oceanic variability through circulation, radiation, and ventilation pathways, whereas cold-season extremes in Northern China are more strongly governed by high-latitude circulation variability associated with boundary-layer suppression and persistent stagnation. These results show that SGED-TCD can recover physically interpretable, hierarchical, and lag-resolved causal pathways in a challenging climate--environment system. More broadly, the proposed framework is not restricted to the present application and provides a general basis for temporal causal discovery in other complex domains.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_10371
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Structural Gating and Effect-aligned Lag-resolved Temporal Causal Discovery Framework with Application to Heat-Pollution Extremes
Chen, Rui
Wu, Jinsong
Machine Learning
This study proposes Structural Gating and Effect-aligned Discovery for Temporal Causal Discovery (SGED-TCD), a novel and general framework for lag-resolved causal discovery in complex multivariate time series. SGED-TCD combines explicit structural gating, stability-oriented learning, perturbation-effect alignment, and unified graph extraction to improve the interpretability, robustness, and functional consistency of inferred causal graphs. To evaluate its effectiveness in a representative real-world setting, we apply SGED-TCD to teleconnection-driven compound heatwave--air-pollution extremes in eastern and northern China. Using large-scale climate indices, regional circulation and boundary-layer variables, and compound extreme indicators, the framework reconstructs weighted causal networks with explicit dominant lags and relative causal importance. The inferred networks reveal clear regional and seasonal heterogeneity: warm-season extremes in Eastern China are mainly linked to low-latitude oceanic variability through circulation, radiation, and ventilation pathways, whereas cold-season extremes in Northern China are more strongly governed by high-latitude circulation variability associated with boundary-layer suppression and persistent stagnation. These results show that SGED-TCD can recover physically interpretable, hierarchical, and lag-resolved causal pathways in a challenging climate--environment system. More broadly, the proposed framework is not restricted to the present application and provides a general basis for temporal causal discovery in other complex domains.
title Structural Gating and Effect-aligned Lag-resolved Temporal Causal Discovery Framework with Application to Heat-Pollution Extremes
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.10371