AI Driven Discovery of Bio Ecological Mediation in Cascading Heatwave Risks

TL;DR

This work tackles the challenge of mapping cascading heatwave risks across climate, ecological, and socioeconomic systems amid fragmented disciplinary knowledge. It introduces HeDA, a multi-agent AI framework that constructs a high-fidelity knowledge graph from 8,111 publications, yielding 70,297 evidence nodes to enable multi-layer risk propagation analysis. Key findings show a bio-ecological mediation effect where biological systems amplify thermal stress into economic losses, and identify latent cross-sector couplings and grey rhino transmission vectors that traditional sectoral models miss. The study provides empirical support for shifting climate adaptation from static, sectoral defenses to dynamic, cross-system resilience, underpinned by an interpretable, data-driven topology of risk and explicit formulas such as $NoveltyScore(P) = \alpha \cdot LF(P) + \beta \cdot CLC(P) + \gamma \cdot IP(P)$ and $L: E -> {Physical, Biological, Social, Economic, CrossLayer}$ to guide risk discovery.

Abstract

Compound heatwaves increasingly trigger complex cascading failures that propagate through interconnected physical and human systems, yet the fragmentation of disciplinary knowledge hinders the comprehensive mapping of these systemic risk topologies. This study introduces the Heatwave Discovery Agent HeDA as an autonomous scientific synthesis framework designed to bridge cognitive gaps by constructing a high fidelity knowledge graph from 8,111 academic publications. By structuring 70,297 evidence nodes, the system exhibits enhanced inferential fidelity in capturing long tail risk mechanisms and achieves a significant accuracy margin compared to standard foundation models including GPT 5.2 and Claude Sonnet 4.5 in complex reasoning tasks. The resulting topological analysis reveals a critical bio ecological mediation effect where biological systems function as the primary non linear amplifiers of thermal stress that transform physical meteorological hazards into systemic socioeconomic losses. We further identify latent functional couplings between theoretically distinct sectors such as the heat induced synchronization of power grid failures and emergency medical capacity saturation. These findings elucidate the dynamics of compound climate risks and provide an empirical basis for shifting adaptation strategies from static sectoral defense to dynamic cross system resilience.

Figures (4)

• Figure 1: Architectural workflow of the Heatwave Discovery Agent (HeDA). The system transforms fragmented unstructured text into a high-fidelity risk topology through a seven-stage neuro-symbolic protocol, bridging the gap between physical climate dynamics and socioeconomic impacts.
• Figure 2: The Bio-Ecological Mediation Architecture. (a) The risk transmission matrix quantifies causal density between systemic layers where the high volume of physical-to-biological transitions contrasts sharply with sparse direct physical-to-economic linkages. (b) The Sankey diagram visualizes this topology as a functional bottleneck where biological systems act as the primary amplification zone that transduces meteorological thermal stress into socioeconomic instability.
• Figure 3: Topological Anatomy of Cross-Sector Functional Coupling. (a) The global network structure reveals the emergence of integrated risk communities where distinct physical and social sectors coalesce into synchronized clusters under thermal stress. (b) The ranking of top bridge nodes by betweenness centrality identifies Marine Heatwaves and Compound Drought events as the primary coupling agents that bridge the theoretical gap between physical climate dynamics and socioeconomic impacts.
• Figure 4: Identification of Bio-Ecological Grey Rhino Risks in the Long Tail Distribution. The scatter plot contrasts structural novelty (y-axis) against literature consensus (x-axis), highlighting a distinct Bio-Ecological Mediation Zone (shaded region) in the high-novelty/low-consensus quadrant. Specific annotations identify the two discovered deep-risk pathways discussed in the text: the marine foundation species mortality chain (marked by the red star) and the soil microbiome dysbiosis mechanism (marked by the green star). These outliers validate the capability of HeDA to uncover physically plausible but historically under-researched biological bottlenecks.