# Publications

Submitted
Chekroun, Mickaël D., Jeroen S.W. Lamb, Christian J. Pangerl, and Martin Rasmussen. Submitted. “A Girsanov approach to slow parameterizing manifolds in the presence of noise”. arXiv's link Abstract
We consider a three-dimensional slow-fast system with quadratic nonlinearity and additive noise. The associated deterministic system of this stochastic differential equation (SDE) exhibits a periodic orbit and a slow manifold. The deterministic slow manifold can be viewed as an approximate parameterization of the fast variable of the SDE in terms of the slow variables. In other words the fast variable of the slow-fast system is approximately "slaved" to the slow variables via the slow manifold. We exploit this fact to obtain a two dimensional reduced model for the original stochastic system, which results in the Hopf-normal form with additive noise. Both, the original as well as the reduced system admit ergodic invariant measures describing their respective long-time behaviour. We will show that for a suitable metric on a subset of the space of all probability measures on phase space, the discrepancy between the marginals along the radial component of both invariant measures can be upper bounded by a constant and a quantity describing the quality of the parameterization. An important technical tool we use to arrive at this result is Girsanov's theorem, which allows us to modify the SDEs in question in a way that preserves transition probabilities. This approach is then also applied to reduced systems obtained through stochastic parameterizing manifolds, which can be viewed as generalized notions of deterministic slow manifolds.

Tantet, Alexis, Mickaël D. Chekroun, Henk A. Dijkstra, and J. David Neelin. Submitted. “Mixing Spectrum in Reduced Phase Spaces of Stochastic Differential Equations. Part II: Stochastic Hopf Bifurcation”. ArXiv's Version Abstract

The spectrum of the Markov semigroup of a diffusion process, referred to as the mixing spectrum, provides a detailed characterization of the dynamics of statistics such as the correlation function and the power spectrum. Stochastic analysis techniques for the study of the mixing spectrum and a rigorous reduction method have been presented in the first part (Chekroun et al. 2017) of this contribution. This framework is now applied to the study of a stochastic Hopf bifurcation, to characterize the statistical properties of nonlinear oscillators perturbed by noise, depending on their stability. In light of the H\"ormander theorem, it is first shown that the geometry of the unperturbed limit cycle, in particular its isochrons, i.e., the leaves of the stable manifold of the limit cycle generalizing the notion of phase, is essential to understand the effect of the noise and the phenomenon of phase diffusion. In addition, it is shown that the mixing spectrum has a spectral gap, even at the bifurcation point, and that correlations decay exponentially fast. Small-noise expansions of the eigenvalues and eigenfunctions are then obtained, away from the bifurcation point, based on the knowledge of the linearized deterministic dynamics and the characteristics of the noise. These formulas allow to understand how the interaction of the noise with the deterministic dynamics affect the decay of correlations. Numerical results complement the study of the mixing spectrum at the bifurcation point, revealing interesting scaling laws. The analysis of the Markov semigroup for stochastic bifurcations is thus promising in providing a complementary approach to the more geometric random dynamical systems. This approach is not limited to low-dimensional systems and the reduction method presented in part I will be applied to stochastic models relevant to climate dynamics in Part III.

2019
Cao, Yining, Mickaël D. Chekroun, Roger Temam, and Aimin Huang. 2019. “Mathematical analysis of the Jin-Neelin model of El Nino-Southern-Oscillation.” Chinese Annals of Mathematics, Series B 40 (1): 1–38. Abstract

The Jin-Neelin model for the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO for short) is considered for which the authors establish existence and uniqueness of global solutions in time over an unbounded channel domain. The result is proved for initial data and forcing that are sufficiently small. The smallness conditions involve in particular key physical parameters of the model such as those that control the travel time of the equatorial waves and the strength of feedback due to vertical-shear currents and upwelling; central mechanisms in ENSO dynamics.

From the mathematical view point, the system appears as the coupling of a linear shallow water system and a nonlinear heat equation. Because of the very different nature of the two components of the system, the authors find it convenient to prove the existence of solution by semi-discretization in time and utilization of a fractional step scheme. The main idea consists of handling the coupling between the oceanic and temperature components by dividing the time interval into small sub-intervals of length k and on each sub-interval to solve successively the oceanic component, using the temperature T calculated on the previous sub-interval, to then solve the sea-surface temperature (SST for short) equation on the current sub-interval. The passage to the limit as k tends to zero is ensured via a priori estimates derived under the aforementioned smallness conditions.

2018
Pierini, Stefano, Mickaël D. Chekroun, and Michael Ghil. 2018. “The onset of chaos in nonautonomous dissipative dynamical systems: a low-order ocean-model case study.” Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics 25: 671-692. Publisher's Version Abstract

A four-dimensional nonlinear spectral ocean model is used to study the transition to chaos induced by periodic forcing in systems that are nonchaotic in the autonomous limit. The analysis relies on the construction of the system’s pullback attractors (PBAs) through ensemble simulations, based on a large number of initial states in the remote past. A preliminary analysis of the autonomous system is carried out by investigating its bifurcation diagram, as well as by calculating a metric that measures the mean distance between two initially nearby trajectories, along with the system’s entropy. We find that nonchaotic attractors can still exhibit sensitive dependence on initial data over some time interval; this apparent paradox is resolved by noting that the dependence only concerns the phase of the periodic trajectories, and that it disappears once the latter have converged onto the attractor. The periodically forced system, analyzed by the same methods, yields periodic or chaotic PBAs depending on the periodic forcing’s amplitude ε. A new diagnostic method – based on the cross-correlation between two initially nearby trajectories – is proposed to characterize the transition between the two types of behavior. Transition to chaos is found to occur abruptly at a critical value εc and begins with the intermittent emergence of periodic oscillations with distinct phases. The same diagnostic method is finally shown to be a useful tool for autonomous and aperiodically forced systems as well.

Kondrashov, Dmitri, Mickaël D. Chekroun, and Michael Ghil. 2018. “Data-adaptive harmonic decomposition and prediction of Arctic sea ice extent.” Dynamics and Statistics of the Climate System 3 (1): 1. Publisher's Version Abstract

Decline in the Arctic sea ice extent (SIE) is an area of active scientific research with profound socio-economic implications. Of particular interest are reliable methods for SIE forecasting on subseasonal time scales, in particular from early summer into fall, when sea ice coverage in the Arctic reaches its minimum. Here, we apply the recent data-adaptive harmonic (DAH) technique of Chekroun and Kondrashov, (2017), Chaos, 27 for the description, modeling and prediction of the Multisensor Analyzed Sea Ice Extent (MASIE, 2006–2016) data set. The DAH decomposition of MASIE identifies narrowband, spatio-temporal data-adaptive modes over four key Arctic regions. The time evolution of the DAH coefficients of these modes can be modelled and predicted by using a set of coupled Stuart–Landau stochastic differential equations that capture the modes’ frequencies and amplitude modulation in time. Retrospective forecasts show that our resulting multilayer Stuart–Landau model (MSLM) is quite skilful in predicting September SIE compared to year-to-year persistence; moreover, the DAH–MSLM approach provided accurate real-time prediction that was highly competitive for the 2016–2017 Sea Ice Outlook.

Kondrashov, Dmitri, Mickaël D. Chekroun, and Pavel Berloff. 2018. “Multiscale Stuart-Landau Emulators: Application to Wind-Driven Ocean Gyres.” Fluids 3 (1): 21. Publisher's Version Abstract

The multiscale variability of the ocean circulation due to its nonlinear dynamics remains a big challenge for theoretical understanding and practical ocean modeling. This paper demonstrates how the data-adaptive harmonic (DAH) decomposition and inverse stochastic modeling techniques introduced in (Chekroun and Kondrashov, (2017), Chaos, 27), allow for reproducing with high fidelity the main statistical properties of multiscale variability in a coarse-grained eddy-resolving ocean flow. This fully-data-driven approach relies on extraction of frequency-ranked time-dependent coefficients describing the evolution of spatio-temporal DAH modes (DAHMs) in the oceanic flow data. In turn, the time series of these coefficients are efficiently modeled by a family of low-order stochastic differential equations (SDEs) stacked per frequency, involving a fixed set of predictor functions and a small number of model coefficients. These SDEs take the form of stochastic oscillators, identified as multilayer Stuart–Landau models (MSLMs), and their use is justified by relying on the theory of Ruelle–Pollicott resonances. The good modeling skills shown by the resulting DAH-MSLM emulators demonstrates the feasibility of using a network of stochastic oscillators for the modeling of geophysical turbulence. In a certain sense, the original quasiperiodic Landau view of turbulence, with the amendment of the inclusion of stochasticity, may be well suited to describe turbulence.

Chekroun, Mickaël D. 2018. “Topological instabilities in families of semilinear parabolic problems subject to nonlinear perturbations.” Discrete and Continuous Dynamical Systems B, doi: 10.3934/dcdsb.2018075. Publisher's version Abstract

In this article it is proved that the dynamical properties of a broad class of semilinear parabolic problems are sensitive to arbitrarily small but smooth perturbations of the nonlinear term, when the spatial dimension is either equal to one or two. This topological instability is shown to result from a local deformation of the global bifurcation diagram associated with the corresponding elliptic problems. Such a deformation is shown to systematically occur via the creation of either a multiple-point or a new fold-point on this diagram when an appropriate small perturbation is applied to the nonlinear term. More precisely, it is shown that for a broad class of nonlinear elliptic problems, one can always find an arbitrary small perturbation of the nonlinear term, that generates a local S on the bifurcation diagram whereas the latter is e.g. monotone when no perturbation is applied; substituting thus a single solution by several ones. Such an increase in the local multiplicity of the solutions to the elliptic problem results then into a topological instability for the corresponding parabolic problem.
The rigorous proof of the latter instability result requires though to revisit the classical concept of topological equivalence to encompass important cases for the applications such as semi-linear parabolic problems for which the semigroup may exhibit non-global dissipative properties, allowing for the coexistence of blow-up regions and local attractors in the phase space; cases that arise e.g. in combustion theory. A revised framework of topological robustness is thus introduced in that respect within which the main topological instability result is then proved for continuous, locally Lipschitz but not necessarily C1 nonlinear terms, that prevent in particular the use of linearization techniques, and for which the family of semigroups may exhibit non-dissipative properties.

Kondrashov, Dmitri, and Mickaël D. Chekroun. 2018. “Data-adaptive harmonic analysis and modeling of solar wind-magnetosphere coupling.” Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics 177: 179-189. Publisher's Version Abstract

The solar wind-magnetosphere coupling is studied by new data-adaptive harmonic (DAH) decomposition approach for the spectral analysis and inverse modeling of multivariate time observations of complex nonlinear dynamical systems. DAH identifies frequency-based modes of interactions in the combined dataset of Auroral Electrojet (AE) index and solar wind forcing. The time evolution of these modes can be very effi- ciently simulated by using systems of stochastic differential equations (SDEs) that are stacked per frequency and formed by coupled Stuart-Landau oscillators. These systems of SDEs capture the modes’ frequencies as well as their amplitude modulations, and yield, in turn, an accurate modeling of the AE index’ statistical properties.

Kondrashov, Dmitri, Mickaël D. Chekroun, Xiaojun Yuan, and Michael Ghil. 2018. “Data-adaptive harmonic decomposition and stochastic modeling of Arctic sea ice.” Advances in Nonlinear Geosciences, A. Tsonis, 179-205. Springer. Publisher's Version Abstract

We present and apply a novel method of describing and modeling complex multivariate datasets in the geosciences and elsewhere. Data-adaptive harmonic (DAH) decomposition identifies narrow-banded, spatio-temporal modes (DAHMs) whose frequencies are not necessarily integer multiples of each other. The evolution in time of the DAH coefficients (DAHCs) of these modes can be modeled using a set of coupled Stuart-Landau stochastic differential equations that capture the modes’ frequencies and amplitude modulation in time and space. This methodology is applied first to a challenging synthetic dataset and then to Arctic sea ice concentration (SIC) data from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). The 36-year (1979–2014) dataset is parsimoniously and accurately described by our DAHMs. Preliminary results indicate that simulations using our multilayer Stuart-Landau model (MSLM) of SICs are stable for much longer time intervals, beyond the end of the twenty-first century, and exhibit interdecadal variability consistent with past historical records. Preliminary results indicate that this MSLM is quite skillful in predicting September sea ice extent.

Chekroun, Mickaël D., Axel Kröner, and Honghu Liu. 2018. “Galerkin approximations for the optimal control of nonlinear delay differential equations.” Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman Equations. Numerical Methods and Applications in Optimal Control, D. Kalise, K. Kunisch, and Z. Rao, 21: 61-96. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. Publisher's version Abstract

Optimal control problems of nonlinear delay  equations (DDEs) are considered for which we propose a general Galerkin approximation scheme built from Koornwinder polynomials. Error estimates for the resulting Galerkin-Koornwinder approximations to the optimal control and the value function, are derived for a broad class of cost functionals and nonlinear DDEs. The approach is illustrated on a delayed logistic equation set not far away from its Hopf bifurcation point in the parameter space. In this case, we show that low-dimensional controls for a standard quadratic cost functional can be efficiently computed from Galerkin-Koornwinder approximations to reduce at a nearly optimal cost the oscillation amplitude displayed by the DDE's solution. Optimal controls computed from the Pontryagin's maximum principle (PMP) and the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation (HJB) associated with the corresponding ODE systems, are shown to provide numerical solutions in good agreement. It is finally argued that the value function computed from the  corresponding reduced HJB equation provides a good approximation of that obtained from the full HJB equation.

Chekroun, Mickaël D., Michael Ghil, and J. David Neelin. 2018. “Pullback attractor crisis in a delay differential ENSO model.” Advances in Nonlinear Geosciences, A. Tsonis, 1-33. Springer. Publisher's version Abstract

We study the pullback attractor (PBA) of a seasonally forced delay differential model for the El Ni\~no--Southern Oscillation (ENSO); the model has two delays, associated with a positive and a negative feedback. The control parameter is the intensity of the positive feedback and the PBA undergoes a crisis that consists of a chaos-to-chaos transition. Since  the PBA is dominated by chaotic behavior, we refer to it as a strange PBA. Both chaotic regimes correspond to an overlapping of resonances but the two differ by the properties of this overlapping. The crisis manifests itself by a brutal change not only in the size but also in the shape of the PBA. The change is associated with the sudden disappearance of the most extreme warm (El Ni\~no) and cold (La Ni\~na) events, as one crosses the critical parameter value from below.  The analysis reveals that regions of the strange PBA that survive the crisis are those populated by the most probable states of the system. These regions are those that exhibit robust foldings with respect to perturbations.  The effect of noise on this phase-and-paramater space behavior is then discussed. It is shown that the chaos-to-chaos crisis may or may not survive the addition of small noise to the evolution equation, depending on how the noise enters the latter.

2017
Chekroun, Mickaël D., and Dmitri Kondrashov. 2017. “Data-adaptive harmonic spectra and multilayer Stuart-Landau models.” Chaos: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science 27 (9): 093110. Publisher's version Abstract

Harmonic decompositions of multivariate time series are considered for which we adopt an integral operator approach with
periodic semigroup kernels. Spectral decomposition theorems are derived that cover the important cases of two-time statistics drawn from a mixing invariant measure.

The corresponding eigenvalues can be grouped per Fourier frequency, and are actually given, at each frequency, as the singular values of a cross-spectral matrix depending on the data. These eigenvalues obey furthermore a variational principle that allows us to define naturally a multidimensional power spectrum.  The eigenmodes, as far as they are concerned, exhibit a data-adaptive character manifested in their phase which allows us in turn to define a multidimensional phase spectrum.

The resulting data-adaptive harmonic (DAH) modes allow for reducing the data-driven modeling effort to elemental models stacked per frequency, only coupled at different frequencies by the same noise realization. In particular, the DAH decomposition extracts time-dependent coefficients stacked by Fourier frequency which can be efficiently modeled---provided the decay of temporal correlations is sufficiently well-resolved---within a class of multilayer stochastic models (MSMs) tailored here on stochastic Stuart-Landau oscillators.

Applications to the Lorenz 96 model and to a stochastic heat equation driven by a space-time white noise, are considered. In both cases, the DAH decomposition allows for an extraction of spatio-temporal modes revealing key features of the dynamics in the embedded phase space. The multilayer Stuart-Landau models (MSLMs) are shown to successfully model the typical patterns of the corresponding time-evolving fields, as well as their statistics of occurrence.

Chekroun, Mickaël D., Axel Kröner, and Honghu Liu. 2017. “Galerkin approximations of nonlinear optimal control problems in Hilbert spaces.” Electronic Journal of Differential Equations 2017 (189): 1-40. Publisher's version Abstract

Nonlinear optimal control problems in Hilbert spaces are considered for which we derive approximation theorems for Galerkin approximations. Approximation theorems are available in the literature. The originality of our approach
relies on the identification of a set of natural assumptions that allows us to deal with a broad class of nonlinear evolution equations and cost functionals for which we derive convergence of the value functions associated with the optimal control problem of the Galerkin approximations. This convergence result holds for a broad class of nonlinear control strategies as well. In particular, we show that the framework applies to the optimal control of semilinear heat equations posed on a general compact manifold without boundary.   The framework is then shown to apply to geoengineering and mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions formulated here in terms of optimal control of energy balance climate models posed on the sphere S2.

Boers, N., M. D. Chekroun, H. Liu, D. Kondrashov, D.-D. Rousseau, A. Svensson, M. Bigler, and M. Ghil. 2017. “Inverse stochastic-dynamic models for high-resolution Greenland ice-core records.” Earth System Dynamics 8: 1171–1190. Publisher's Version Abstract

Proxy records from Greenland ice cores have been studied for several decades, yet many open questions remain regarding the climate variability encoded therein. Here, we use a Bayesian framework for inferring inverse, stochastic-dynamic models from δ18O and dust records of unprecedented, subdecadal temporal resolution. The records stem from the North Greenland Ice Core Project (NGRIP) and we focus on the time interval 59 ka–22 ka b2k. Our model reproduces the dynamical characteristics of both the δ18O and dust proxy records, including the millennial-scale Dansgaard–Oeschger variability, as well as statistical properties such as probability density functions, waiting times and power spectra, with no need for any external forcing. The crucial ingredients for capturing these properties are (i) high-resolution training data; (ii) cubic drift terms; (iii) nonlinear coupling terms between the δ18O and dust time series; and (iv) non-Markovian contributions that represent short-term memory effects.

Chekroun, Mickaël D., Honghu Liu, and James C. McWilliams. 2017. “The emergence of fast oscillations in a reduced primitive equation model and its implications for closure theories.” Computers & Fluids 151: 3-22. Publisher's Version Abstract

The problem of emergence of fast gravity-wave oscillations in rotating, stratified flow is reconsidered. Fast inertia-gravity oscillations have long been considered an impediment to initialization of weather forecasts, and the concept of a “slow manifold” evolution, with no fast oscillations, has been hypothesized. It is shown on a reduced Primitive Equation model introduced by Lorenz in 1980 that fast oscillations are absent over a finite interval in Rossby number but they can develop brutally once a critical Rossby number is crossed, in contradistinction with fast oscillations emerging according to an exponential smallness scenario such as reported in previous studies, including some others by Lorenz. The consequences of this dynamical transition on the closure problem based on slow variables is also discussed. In that respect, a novel variational perspective on the closure problem exploiting manifolds is introduced. This framework allows for a unification of previous concepts such as the slow manifold or other concepts of “fuzzy” manifold. It allows furthermore for a rigorous identification of an optimal limiting object for the averaging of fast oscillations, namely the optimal parameterizing manifold (PM). It is shown through detailed numerical computations and rigorous error estimates that the manifold underlying the nonlinear Balance Equations provides a very good approximation of this optimal PM even somewhat beyond the emergence of fast and energetic oscillations.

2016
Dijkstra, Henk A, Alexis Tantet, Jan Viebahn, Erik Mulder, Mariët Hebbink, Daniele Castellana, Henri van den Pol, et al. 2016. “A numerical framework to understand transitions in high-dimensional stochastic dynamical systems.” Dynamics and Statistics of the Climate System 1 (1): 1-27. Publisher's Version Abstract

Dynamical systems methodology is a mature complementary approach to forward simulation which can be used to investigate many aspects of climate dynamics. With this paper, a review is given on the methods to analyze deterministic and stochastic climate models and show that these are not restricted to low-dimensional toy models, but that they can be applied to models formulated by stochastic partial differential equations. We sketch the numerical implementation of these methods and illustrate these by showing results for two canonical problems in climate dynamics.

Chekroun, Mickaël D., Eunhee Park, and Roger Temam. 2016. “The Stampacchia maximum principle for stochastic partial differential equations and applications.” Journal of Differential Equations 260 (3): 2926 - 2972. Publisher's Version Abstract
Abstract Stochastic partial differential equations (SPDEs) are considered, linear and nonlinear, for which we establish comparison theorems for the solutions, or positivity results a.e., and a.s., for suitable data. Comparison theorems for \SPDEs\ are available in the literature. The originality of our approach is that it is based on the use of truncations, following the Stampacchia approach to maximum principle. We believe that our method, which does not rely too much on probability considerations, is simpler than the existing approaches and to a certain extent, more directly applicable to concrete situations. Among the applications, boundedness results and positivity results are respectively proved for the solutions of a stochastic Boussinesq temperature equation, and of reaction–diffusion equations perturbed by a non-Lipschitz nonlinear noise. Stabilization results to a Chafee–Infante equation perturbed by a nonlinear noise are also derived.
Kondrashov, Dmitri, Mickaël D. Chekroun, and Michael Ghil. 2016. “Comment on Nonparametric forecasting of low-dimensional dynamical systems''.” Phys. Rev. E 93. American Physical Society: 036201. Publisher's Version Abstract

The comparison performed in Berry et al. [Phys. Rev. E 91, 032915 (2015)] between the skill in predicting the El Niño-Southern Oscillation climate phenomenon by the prediction method of Berry et al. and the “past-noise” forecasting method of Chekroun et al. [Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 108, 11766 (2011)] is flawed. Three specific misunderstandings in Berry et al. are pointed out and corrected.

Chen, C., M. Cane, N. Henderson, D. Lee, D. Chapman, D. Kondrashov, and M. D. Chekroun. 2016. “Diversity, nonlinearity, seasonality and memory effect in ENSO simulation and prediction using empirical model reduction.” Journal of Climate 29 (5): 1809–1830. Publisher's Version Abstract

A suite of empirical model experiments under the empirical model reduction framework are conducted to advance the understanding of ENSO diversity, nonlinearity, seasonality, and the memory effect in the simulation and prediction of tropical Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies. The model training and evaluation are carried out using 4000-yr preindustrial control simulation data from the coupled model GFDL CM2.1. The results show that multivariate models with tropical Pacific subsurface information and multilevel models with SST history information both improve the prediction skill dramatically. These two types of models represent the ENSO memory effect based on either the recharge oscillator or the time-delayed oscillator viewpoint. Multilevel SST models are a bit more efficient, requiring fewer model coefficients. Nonlinearity is found necessary to reproduce the ENSO diversity feature for extreme events. The nonlinear models reconstruct the skewed probability density function of SST anomalies and improve the prediction of the skewed amplitude, though the role of nonlinearity may be slightly overestimated given the strong nonlinear ENSO in GFDL CM2.1. The models with periodic terms reproduce the SST seasonal phase locking but do not improve the prediction appreciably. The models with multiple ingredients capture several ENSO characteristics simultaneously and exhibit overall better prediction skill for more diverse target patterns. In particular, they alleviate the spring/autumn prediction barrier and reduce the tendency for predicted values to lag the target month value.

Pierini, S., M. Ghil, and M. Chekroun. 2016. “Exploring the pullback attractors of a low-order quasigeostrophic ocean model: the deterministic case.” Journal of Climate 29 (11): 4185-4202. Publisher's Version Abstract

A low-order quasigeostrophic double-gyre ocean model is subjected to an aperiodic forcing that mimics time dependence dominated by interdecadal variability. This model is used as a prototype of an unstable and nonlinear dynamical system with time-dependent forcing to explore basic features of climate change in the presence of natural variability. The study relies on the theoretical framework of nonautonomous dynamical systems and of their pullback attractors (PBAs), that is, of the time-dependent invariant sets attracting all trajectories initialized in the remote past. The existence of a global PBA is rigorously demonstrated for this weakly dissipative nonlinear model. Ensemble simulations are carried out and the convergence to PBAs is assessed by computing the probability density function (PDF) of localization of the trajectories. A sensitivity analysis with respect to forcing amplitude shows that the PBAs experience large modifications if the underlying autonomous system is dominated by small-amplitude limit cycles, while less dramatic changes occur in a regime characterized by large-amplitude relaxation oscillations. The dependence of the attracting sets on the choice of the ensemble of initial states is then analyzed. Two types of basins of attraction coexist for certain parameter ranges; they contain chaotic and nonchaotic trajectories, respectively. The statistics of the former does not depend on the initial states whereas the trajectories in the latter converge to small portions of the global PBA. This complex scenario requires separate PDFs for chaotic and nonchaotic trajectories. General implications for climate predictability are finally discussed.