Projected Twenty-First-Century Changes in the Length of the Tropical Cyclone Season
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Dwyer-2015-Projected Twenty-Fir.pdf
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Author(s)
Dwyer, John G.
Camargo, Suzana J.
Biasutti, Michela
Vecchi, Gabriel A.
Zhao, Ming
Tippett, Michael K.
Emanuel, Kerry Andrew
Sobel, Adam H., 1967-
Date Issued
August 2015
Journal
Journal of Climate
Publisher
American Meteorological Society
Citation
Dwyer, John G., Suzana J. Camargo, Adam H. Sobel, Michela Biasutti, Kerry A. Emanuel, Gabriel A. Vecchi, Ming Zhao, and Michael K. Tippett. “Projected Twenty-First-Century Changes in the Length of the Tropical Cyclone Season.” J. Climate 28, no. 15 (August 2015): 6181–6192. © 2015 American Meteorological Society
Version
Final published version
Abstract
This study investigates projected changes in the length of the tropical cyclone season due to greenhouse gas increases. Two sets of simulations are analyzed, both of which capture the relevant features of the observed annual cycle of tropical cyclones in the recent historical record. Both sets use output from the general circulation models (GCMs) of either phase 3 or phase 5 of the CMIP suite (CMIP3 and CMIP5, respectively). In one set, downscaling is performed by randomly seeding incipient vortices into the large-scale atmospheric conditions simulated by each GCM and simulating the vortices’ evolution in an axisymmetric dynamical tropical cyclone model; in the other set, the GCMs’ sea surface temperature (SST) is used as the boundary condition for a high-resolution global atmospheric model (HiRAM). The downscaling model projects a longer season (in the late twenty-first century compared to the twentieth century) in most basins when using CMIP5 data but a slightly shorter season using CMIP3. HiRAM with either CMIP3 or CMIP5 SST anomalies projects a shorter tropical cyclone season in most basins. Season length is measured by the number of consecutive days that the mean cyclone count is greater than a fixed threshold, but other metrics give consistent results. The projected season length changes are also consistent with the large-scale changes, as measured by a genesis index of tropical cyclones. The season length changes are mostly explained by an idealized year-round multiplicative change in tropical cyclone frequency, but additional changes in the transition months also contribute.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Program in Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1175/jcli-d-14-00686.1
