A Performance Evaluation of Potential Intensity over the Tropical Cyclone Passage to South Korea Simulated by CMIP5 and CMIP6 Models

Doo-Sun R Park,Maeng-Ki Kim,Young-Hwa Byun,Jeong-Soo Park,Seung-Ki Min,Il-Ung Chung,Hyeong-Seog Kim,Minho Kwon

doi:10.3390/atmos12091214

Abstract

Potential intensity (PI) is a metric for climate model evaluation of TC-related thermodynamic conditions. However, PI is utilized usually for assessing basin-wide TC-related thermodynamic conditions, and not for evaluating TC passage to a certain region. Here we evaluate model-simulated PI over the passage of TCs affecting South Korea (KOR PI) as well as the PI over the entire western North Pacific basin (WNP PI) using 25 CMIP5 and 27 CMIP6 models. In terms of pattern correlations and bias-removed root mean square errors, CMIP6 model performances for KOR PI are found to be noticeably improved over CMIP5 models in contrast to negligible improvement for WNP PI, although it is not in terms of normalized standard deviations. This implies that thermodynamic condition on the route of TCs affecting South Korea is likely better captured by CMIP6 models than CMIP5 models.

Highlights

Accurate projection of future TC activity requires climate models that reliably simulate TC activity in the present climate and, evaluation of TC simulation accuracy for each model is necessary
This study evaluated simulations of KOR and western North Pacific (WNP) Potential intensity (PI) by using 25 CMIP5 and 27 CMIP6 models
In CMIP6 models, the simulation of KOR PI is significantly improved compared to CMIP5 models in the aspects of COR and root mean square errors (RMSEs) that of western North Pacific basin (WNP PI) is not

Summary

Introduction

Accurate projection of future TC activity requires climate models that reliably simulate TC activity in the present climate and, evaluation of TC simulation accuracy for each model is necessary. The best way should be to detect TCs directly from climate models and use them for evaluation. Several studies dynamically downscaled CMIP models, by using regional climate models (RCMs) to obtain higher resolution data [5,6]. This requires intensive computing resources as much as global climate models. Most previous studies evaluated the performance on simulated PI for assessing basin-wide TC-related thermodynamic conditions. In this study, we evaluate PI over the area of TC passage to South Korea to assess model performance for simulated thermodynamic environments for the activity of TCs affecting Korea by using CMIP5 and CMIP6 models. We evaluated PI simulation over the entire western North Pacific (WNP) as well

Data and Methods

Results

Conclusions