Tropical Cyclone Frequency

Sobel, Adam H.; Wing, Allison A.; Camargo, Suzana J.; Patricola, Christina M.; Vecchi, Gabriel A.; Lee, Chia‐Ying; Tippett, Michael K.

doi:10.1029/2021ef002275

Cited by 89 publications

(75 citation statements)

References 188 publications

(276 reference statements)

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“…This disagreement in projected changes between models highlights the importance of considering projections from a model ensemble rather than a single model. In addition, even if more of the cyclones that form in the future are more intense, the overall frequency of cyclones is most often predicted to stay the same or drop (Sobel et al., 2021). This means that the absolute frequency of intense cyclones may not rise, depending on how much overall cyclone frequency changes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coral Reef Exposure to Damaging Tropical Cyclone Waves in a Warming Climate

et al. 2022

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Tropical cyclones generate large waves that physically damage coral communities and are commonly cited as a worsening threat to coral reefs under climate change. However, beyond projections of ocean basin‐scale changes in cyclone intensity, the other determinants of future coral reef damage such as cyclone size and duration remain uncertain. Here, we determine the extent to which downscaled cyclones represent observed cyclone characteristics that influence wave damage to Australian coral reef regions. We then investigate mid‐century (2040–2060) and end of century (2080–2100) downscaled tracks to assess whether cyclone characteristics will change with future warming under a high‐emissions scenario. We find that spatial uncertainties in downscaled cyclogenesis and track positions limit estimates of reef damage for individual coral reefs and regions. Further, the models are unable to reproduce the most reef damaging cyclones for any of the regions. The downscaled tracks capture observed cyclone characteristics, such as size, impacting the Great Barrier Reef well, but perform poorly for the Northern Territory, with mixed performance for the Coral Sea and Western Australia. We find no clear evidence that cyclones will cause more damage to Australian coral reef regions in the future, at least based on the climate models and downscaling approach examined here. There is increasing interest in using tropical cyclone projections to assess future coral reef exposure to damaging waves. We recommend caution when interpreting such projections due to large uncertainty in the mechanisms that influence reef damaging tropical cyclone characteristics and how these will change with future warming.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coral Reef Exposure to Damaging Tropical Cyclone Waves in a Warming Climate

et al. 2022

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“…This study shows that the observed TCF change in several coastal regions over the past 40 years is likely associated with anthropogenic climate change, mainly through regional warming and its remote influence on circulations that changes the TC genesis and steering conditions. Many studies have focused on the global-and basin-mean change of TC activity 4,14,36 . However, considering the real threat posed by TCs, the TCF changes in coastal regions are perhaps our ultimate concern.…”

Section: Summary and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anthropogenic forcing changes coastal tropical cyclone frequency

Wang

Murakami²,

Cooke³

2022

Preprint

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It remains a mystery if and how anthropogenic climate change has altered the global tropical cyclone (TC) activities, mainly due to short reliable TC observations and substantial climate internal variabilities. Here we show with large-ensemble TC-permitting simulations that the observed changes in global coastal TC frequency since 1980 were caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHG) and/or aerosols. The observed increases in TC frequency near the US Atlantic coast and Hawaii are likely related to the aerosol and GHG effects, respectively. The observed decrease in the South China Sea could be associated with GHG emissions alone, whereas the observed increase near Japan and Korea would be related to the aerosol and GHG combined effects. These changes are explained by the responses of large-scale environmental conditions to anthropogenic forcing. Our findings suggest the substantial influence of anthropogenic forcing on TC frequency over the heavily populated coastal regions worldwide.

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“…Another potential application of our methods is catastrophe modeling under climate change. Tropical cyclones pose a pressing problem for coastal communities, and have motivated several hybrid dynamical/statistical downscaling methods to project risk into the future under various climate change scenarios (Camargo et al, 2014;Lee et al, 2018;Jing & Lin, 2020;Sobel et al, 2021). Extreme precipitation of many varieties threatens cities and agriculture and is expected to change significantly with global warming (e.g., O'Gorman, 2012;Pfahl et al, 2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Revealing the statistics of extreme events hidden in short weather forecast data

Finkel¹,

Gerber²,

Abbot³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Extreme weather events have significant consequences, dominating the impact of climate on society, but occur with small probabilities that are inherently difficult to compute. A rare event with a 100year return period takes, on average, 100 years of simulation time to appear just once. Computational constraints limit the resolution of models used for such long integrations, but high resolution is necessary to resolve extreme event dynamics. We demonstrate a method to exploit short-term forecasts from a high-fidelity weather model and lasting only weeks rather than centuries, to estimate the long-term climatological statistics of rare events. Using only two decades of forecast data, we are able to robustly estimate return times on the centennial scale. We use the mathematical framework of transition path theory to compute the rate and seasonal distribution of sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) events of varying intensity. We find SSW rates consistent with those derived from reanalysis data, but with greater precision. Our method performs well even with simple feature spaces of moderate dimension, and holds potential for assessing extreme events beyond SSW, including heat waves and floods.

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Tropical Cyclone Frequency

Cited by 89 publications

References 188 publications

Coral Reef Exposure to Damaging Tropical Cyclone Waves in a Warming Climate

Coral Reef Exposure to Damaging Tropical Cyclone Waves in a Warming Climate

Anthropogenic forcing changes coastal tropical cyclone frequency

Revealing the statistics of extreme events hidden in short weather forecast data

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