Concurrent Changes to Hadley Circulation and the Meridional Distribution of Tropical Cyclones

Studholme, Joshua; Gulev, Sergey

doi:10.1175/jcli-d-17-0852.1

Cited by 62 publications

(57 citation statements)

References 115 publications

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“…Following the RCP8.5 emission trajectory, an ensemble of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) models projects the LMI location in the western North Pacific to migrate poleward throughout the 21st century, though the models do not show a significant trend in the historical climate (Kossin et al, ). Possible mechanisms that explain the northward shift of the LMI location include the poleward expansion of the region that supports TC development (e.g., Lucas et al, ; Studholme & Gulev, ), long‐term oscillations of sea surface temperatures such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation or the Atlantic Meridional Mode (e.g., Kossin et al, ; Moon et al, ; Song & Klotzbach, ), or shifts in the TC genesis region (Daloz & Camargo, ). In FLOR‐FA, there are no significant trends in the time series of LMI locations in the historical or future simulations, nor is there a significant difference between the average LMI location in the future climate and that in the historical climate (not shown).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Application of the Cyclone Phase Space to Extratropical Transition in a Global Climate Model

Bieli

Sobel

Camargo

et al. 2020

J Adv Model Earth Syst

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The authors analyze the global statistics of tropical cyclones undergoing extratropical transition (ET) in the Forecast-oriented Low Ocean Resolution version of CM2.5 with Flux Adjustment (FLOR-FA). The cyclone phase space (CPS) is used to diagnose ET. A simulation of the recent historical climate is analyzed and compared with data from the Japanese 55-year Reanalysis (JRA-55), and then a simulation of late 21st century climate under Representative Concentration Pathway 4.5 is compared to the historical simulation. When CPS is applied to the FLOR-FA output in the historical simulation, the results diverge from those obtained from JRA-55 by having an unrealistic number of ET cases at low latitudes, due to the presence of strong local maxima in the upper-level geopotential. These features mislead CPS into detecting a cold core where one is not present. The misdiagnosis is largely corrected by replacing the maxima required by CPS with the 95th percentile values, smoothing the CPS trajectories in time, or both. Other climate models may contain grid-scale structures akin to those in FLOR-FA and, when used for CPS analysis, require solutions such as those discussed here. Comparisons of ET in the projected future climate with the historical climate show a number of changes that are robust to the details of the ET diagnosis, though few are statistically significant according to standard tests. Among them are an increase in the ET fraction and a reduction in the mean latitude at which ET occurs in the western North Pacific. Plain Language SummaryWhen tropical cyclones move into the midlatitudes, they change their physical structure and sometimes transform into extratropical cyclones. This process is called extratropical transition. One diagnostic tool for defining extratropical transition is the cyclone phase space. In this study, the authors apply the cyclone phase space to the tropical cyclones simulated by a global climate model. The output of this climate model has some features that misguide the cyclone phase space into diagnosing a cyclone as extratropical when in fact it is tropical. The authors examine various adjustments of the cyclone phase space that largely correct this misdiagnosis. They then study the changes in the global occurrence of extratropical transition between two 30-year time periods simulated by the climate model: a historical period from 1976 to 2005 and a future period from 2071 to 2100, whose simulation is based on a scenario of moderate increases in greenhouse gas emissions. In the western North Pacific, tropical cyclones are found to become more likely to undergo extratropical transition in the future climate. In general, though, the changes in global statistics of extratropical transition (e.g., where and how often it occurs) between the simulated future and historical climate are small.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Application of the Cyclone Phase Space to Extratropical Transition in a Global Climate Model

Bieli

Sobel

Camargo

et al. 2020

J Adv Model Earth Syst

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“…The migration rate is particularly well observed and robust in the western North Pacific-the focus of a number of studies (Kossin et al 2016a;Choi et al 2016;Liang et al 2017;Oey and Chou 2016;Song and Klotzbach 2018;Zhan and Wang 2017;He et al 2015;Tennille and Ellis 2017;Kossin 2018b;Studholme and Gulev 2018). Therefore our case study focuses on this basin.…”

Section: Case Studies -Assessment Of De-tection and Attributionmentioning

confidence: 87%

Tropical Cyclones and Climate Change Assessment: Part I: Detection and Attribution

Knutson

Camargo

Chan

et al. 2019

Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

446

305

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An assessment was made of whether detectable changes in tropical cyclone (TC) activity are identifiable in observations and whether any changes can be attributed to anthropogenic climate change. Overall, historical data suggest detectable TC activity changes in some regions associated with TC track changes, while data quality and quantity issues create greater challenges for analyses based on TC intensity and frequency. A number of specific published conclusions (case studies) about possible detectable anthropogenic influence on TCs were assessed using the conventional approach of preferentially avoiding type I errors (i.e., overstating anthropogenic influence or detection). We conclude there is at least low to medium confidence that the observed poleward migration of the latitude of maximum intensity in the western North Pacific is detectable, or highly unusual compared to expected natural variability. Opinion on the author team was divided on whether any observed TC changes demonstrate discernible anthropogenic influence, or whether any other observed changes represent detectable changes. The issue was then reframed by assessing evidence for detectable anthropogenic influence while seeking to reduce the chance of type II errors (i.e., missing or understating anthropogenic influence or detection). For this purpose, we used a much weaker “balance of evidence” criterion for assessment. This leads to a number of more speculative TC detection and/or attribution statements, which we recognize have substantial potential for being false alarms (i.e., overstating anthropogenic influence or detection) but which may be useful for risk assessment. Several examples of these alternative statements, derived using this approach, are presented in the report.

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“…Teague et al, 2007;Phibbs and Toumi, 2014) which are generally expected to become relatively sparser but more intense, and change in their zonal and meridional distribution over the coming century (e.g. Bender et al, 2010;Knutson et al, 2013;Studholme and Gulev, 2018). At higher latitudes, both winter and summer increases in seasonalmean and maximum waves have been identified over the last 36 years (Waseda et al, 2018) and are projected to continue into the coming century (Khon et al, 2014;Casas-Prat et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ocean Wind Wave Climate Responses to Wintertime North Atlantic Atmospheric Transient Eddies and Low-Frequency Flow

2019

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Atmospheric transient eddies and low-frequency flow contribution to the ocean surface wave climate in the North Atlantic during boreal winter is investigated (1980 -2016). We conduct a set of numerical simulations with a state-of-the-art spectral wave model Wavewatch III forced by decomposed wind fields derived from the ERA-Interim reanalysis (0.7° horizontal resolution). Synoptic-scale processes (2-10 day bandpassed winds) are found to have the largest impact on the formation of wind waves in the western mid-latitude North Atlantic along the North American and western Greenland coasts. The eastern North Atlantic is found to be influenced by the combination of low-frequency forcing (>10 day bandpassed winds) contributing up to 60% and synoptic processes contributing up to 30% to mean wave heights.Mid-latitude storm track variability is found to have a direct relationship with wave height variability on the eastern and western margins of the North Atlantic in particular implying an association between cyclone formation over the North American Eastern Seaboard and wave heights anomalies in the eastern North Atlantic. A shift in wave height regimes defined using an EOF analysis is reflected in the occurrence anomalies in their distribution.Results highlight the dominant role of transient eddies on the ocean surface wave climatology in the mid-latitude eastern North Atlantic both locally and through association with cyclone formation in the western part of the basin. These conclusions are presented and discussed particularly within the context of long-term storm-track shifts projected as a possible response to climate warming over the coming century.

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Concurrent Changes to Hadley Circulation and the Meridional Distribution of Tropical Cyclones

Cited by 62 publications

References 115 publications

Application of the Cyclone Phase Space to Extratropical Transition in a Global Climate Model

Application of the Cyclone Phase Space to Extratropical Transition in a Global Climate Model

Tropical Cyclones and Climate Change Assessment: Part I: Detection and Attribution

Ocean Wind Wave Climate Responses to Wintertime North Atlantic Atmospheric Transient Eddies and Low-Frequency Flow

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