Abstract
We discuss the temporal evolution of correlations of synchronization errors in spatially extended chaotic systems near (and below) the synchronization transition. We exploit the fact that, by construction, synchronization errors are finite perturbations of the coupled system in order to analyze the dynamics of the error and how their properties are determined by the nearby phase transition. We introduce a novel diagram plot that allows us to identify the transition universality class in a very intuitive and computationally inexpensive way.