Regional model simulation of North Atlantic cyclones: Present climate and idealized response to increased sea surface temperature

Semmler, Tido; Varghese, Saji; McGrath, Ray; Nolan, P.; Wang, S.; Lynch, Peter; O’Dowd, Colin

doi:10.1029/2006jd008213

Cited by 17 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 71 publications

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“…This means that the large-scale flow predicted by the model is able to drift from that specified by the boundary conditions (Jones et al 1995), so that changing the SSTs could potentially result in changes to the large-scale flow within the domain. A similar approach was used successfully by Semmler et al (2008) to investigate the storm sensitivity to a uniform increase in SST.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Storm track sensitivity to sea surface temperature resolution in a regional atmosphere model

et al. 2009

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A high resolution regional atmosphere model is used to investigate the sensitivity of the North Atlantic storm track to the spatial and temporal resolution of the sea surface temperature (SST) data used as a lower boundary condition. The model is run over an unusually large domain covering all of the North Atlantic and Europe, and is shown to produce a very good simulation of the observed storm track structure. The model is forced at the lateral boundaries with 15-20 years of data from the ERA-40 reanalysis, and at the lower boundary by SST data of differing resolution. The impacts of increasing spatial and temporal resolution are assessed separately, and in both cases increasing the resolution leads to subtle, but significant changes in the storm track. In some, but not all cases these changes act to reduce the small storm track biases seen in the model when it is forced with low-resolution SSTs. In addition there are several clear mesoscale responses to increased spatial SST resolution, with surface heat fluxes and convective precipitation increasing by 10-20% along the Gulf Stream SST gradient.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Storm track sensitivity to sea surface temperature resolution in a regional atmosphere model

et al. 2009

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“…Compared to an idealized sensitivity experiment by Semmler et al (2008), in which a homogeneous increase in SST and atmospheric temperatures by 1 K along with unchanged relative humidity was considered, there are some differences and some commonalities. Tropical, ET and extratropical cyclone counts generally increased in the idealized experiment, with the strongest increases in the high-intensity classes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, a nearly 3-fold increase in the count of Category 2 hurricanes (on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale, i.e. a wind 2 Study and method Knutson & Tuleya (2004): large number of idealized experiments with GFDL hurricane prediction system (horizontal resolution: 9 km) Oouchi et al (2006): 10 yr time slice experiments with GCM (horizontal resolution: 20 km) Yoshimura et al (2006): 10 yr time slice experiments with GCM (horizontal resolution: 120 km) Geng & Sugi (2003): 20 yr time slice experiments with GCM (horizontal resolution: 120 km) Leckebusch et al (2006): evaluation of 30 yr time slices of an ensemble of GCM and RCM simulations (horizontal resolution: ~200 km for GCMs and ~50 km for RCMs) Bengtsson et al (2006): evaluation of 30 yr time slices of GCM experiments (horizontal resolution: ~200 km) Semmler et al (2008): 16 yr time slices of idealized RCM experiments considering an increased SST and homogeneous atmospheric warming (horizontal resolution: 28 km) Present study: 16 yr time slices of RCM experiments driven by a GCM scenario (horizontal resolution of RCM: 28 km)…”

Section: Tropical Cyclonesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Because of the large uncertainty, a start has to be made to investigate different factors influencing the development of tropical cyclones, their movement and their transition into extratropical cyclones. Semmler et al (2008) (hereafter referred to as S08) performed an idealized sensitivity experiment investigating the influence of an increased sea surface temperature (SST), which is known to be a major influencing factor for tropical cyclones (e.g. Chan et al 2001, Davis & Bosart 2002 along with other factors such as ambient relative humidity, static stability (SS) (Emanuel 1987), convective available potential energy (Holland 1997) and vertical wind shear (Michaels et al 2005).…”

Section: Tropical Cyclonesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Regional climate model simulations of North Atlantic cyclones: frequency and intensity changes

Semmler¹,

Varghese²,

McGrath³

et al. 2008

Clim. Res.

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Frequency and intensity of cyclones over the North Atlantic are investigated using 2 data sets from simulations with the Rossby Centre regional climate model RCA3. The model domain comprises large parts of the North Atlantic and the adjacent continents. RCA3 is driven by ECHAM5-OM1 general circulation model data for May to December from 1985 to 2000 and May to December from 2085 to 2100 assuming the SRES-A2 emission scenario. We apply an objective algorithm to identify and track tropical and extratropical cyclones, as well as extratropical transition. The simulation indicates increase in the count of strong hurricanes and extratropical cyclones. Contrasting, and generally weaker, changes are seen for the less extreme events. Decreases of 18% in the count of extratropical cyclones and 13% in the count of tropical cyclones with wind speeds of ≥18 m s -1 can be found. Furthermore, there is a pronounced shift in the tracks of hurricanes and their extratropical transition in November and December-more hurricanes are seen over the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea and the western Sargasso Sea and less over the southern North Atlantic.

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“…A difference in the air‐sea temperature caused by a change in the SST affects the ocean surface heat fluxes and stability of MABL [ Giordani and Caniaux , 2001; Tokinaga et al , 2005; Song et al , 2006]. In an idealized sensitivity experiment [ Semmler et al , 2008], the SSTs and atmospheric temperatures in the lateral boundary at all levels were artificially increased by 1 K, and an increase in the number of strong hurricanes was found, but there was little change in the locations of the hurricanes. Conversely, a positive correlation (zero correlation) between the temperature and wind speed has been reported over regions with a strong SST gradient (a weak SST gradient) [ Xie , 2004].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Implications of sea surface temperature deviations in the prediction of wind and precipitable water over the Yellow Sea

et al. 2011

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[1] The effects of deviations in the sea surface temperature (SST) on the atmospheric variables over the Yellow Sea were investigated by numerical simulations based on realistic deviations in the magnitude and gradient of the SST. The SST magnitude was found to control primarily the surface air temperature, the atmospheric stability, and vertical moisture fluxes, whereas the SST gradient mainly affected the surface wind fields. Although the SST magnitude can also affect wind fields, its effect on the winds was small compared with the influence of the SST gradient. Both the SST gradient and magnitude clearly affected the evaporation rates. The magnitudes of the evaporation rates were found to be directly controlled by the SST magnitude, whereas the horizontal distributions of the evaporation rates were controlled by the SST gradient. The spatial patterns of the precipitable water amounts at the surface were similar to those of the vertical winds but slightly different from those of the evaporation rates. The use of an accurate SST in a meteorological model could be therefore of primary importance particularly for more accurate weather forecasting. Additionally, the effect of deviations in the SST on the atmospheric variables was damping with height, but that on the vertical winds was oscillatory and amplifying to the top of troposphere with height. This study has demonstrated that the construction of realistic SST field without smoothing the SST gradient can produce more accurate and realistic meteorological fields over the Yellow Sea in a mesoscale meteorological model.

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Regional model simulation of North Atlantic cyclones: Present climate and idealized response to increased sea surface temperature

Cited by 17 publications

References 71 publications

Storm track sensitivity to sea surface temperature resolution in a regional atmosphere model

Storm track sensitivity to sea surface temperature resolution in a regional atmosphere model

Regional climate model simulations of North Atlantic cyclones: frequency and intensity changes

Implications of sea surface temperature deviations in the prediction of wind and precipitable water over the Yellow Sea

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