On the factors affecting trends and variability in tropical cyclone potential intensity
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KE Wing_et_al-2015-GRL.pdf
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Author(s)
Wing, Allison A.
Emanuel, Kerry Andrew
Solomon, Susan
Date Issued
October 2015
Journal
Geophysical Research Letters
Publisher
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Citation
Wing, Allison A., Kerry Emanuel, and Susan Solomon. “On the Factors Affecting Trends and Variability in Tropical Cyclone Potential Intensity.” Geophysical Research Letters 42, no. 20 (October 19, 2015): 8669–8677.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Tropical cyclone potential intensity (V[subscript p]) is controlled by thermodynamic air-sea disequilibrium and thermodynamic efficiency, which is a function of the sea surface temperature and the tropical cyclone’s outflow temperature. Observed trends and variability in V[subscript p] in each ocean basin are decomposed into contributions from these two components. Robustly detectable trends are found only in the North
Atlantic, where tropical tropopause layer (TTL) cooling contributes up to a third of the increase in Vp. The contribution from disequilibrium dominates the few statistically significant V[subscript p] trends in the other basins. The results are sensitive to the data set used and details of the V[subscript p] calculation, reflecting uncertainties in
TTL temperature trends and the difficulty of estimating V[subscript p] and its components. We also find that 20–71% of the interannual variability in V[subscript p] is linked to the TTL, with correlations between detrended time series of
thermodynamic efficiency and V[subscript p] occurring over all ocean basins.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Chemistry
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Program in Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1002/2015gl066145
