Analysing spatially extended high-dimensional dynamics by recurrence plots

•We use recurrence plots for analysing partially extended dynamics.•We investigate the high-dimensional chaos of the Lorenz96 model.•The approach distinguishes different spatio-temporal dynamics.•We use the method for studying vegetation cover time series.

Recurrence plot based measures of complexity are capable tools for characterizing complex dynamics. In this letter we show the potential of selected recurrence plot measures for the investigation of even high-dimensional dynamics. We apply this method on spatially extended chaos, such as derived from the Lorenz96 model and show that the recurrence plot based measures can qualitatively characterize typical dynamical properties such as chaotic or periodic dynamics. Moreover, we demonstrate its power by analysing satellite image time series of vegetation cover with contrasting dynamics as a spatially extended and potentially high-dimensional example from the real world.