Structural k -means (S k -means) and clustering uncertainty evaluation framework (CUEF) for mining climate data

One of the most popular data clustering/mining techniques is k-means, and it has been used to detect hidden patterns in climate systems; k-means is established based on distance metrics for pattern recognition, which is relatively ineffective when dealing with "structured" data, that is, data in time and space domains, which are dominant in climate science.

Here, we propose (i) a novel structural-similarity-recognition-based k-means algorithm called structural k-means or S k-means for climate data mining and (ii) a new clustering uncertainty representation/evaluation framework based on the information entropy concept. We demonstrate that the novel S k-means could provide higher-quality clustering outcomes in terms of general silhouette analysis, although it requires higher computational resources compared with conventional algorithms.