Abstract
Recent improvements in the theoretical understanding of the relationship between tropical cyclones (TCs) and their large-scale environments have resulted in significant improvements in the skill for forecasting TC activity at daily and seasonal time-scales. However, future changes in TC activity under a warmer climate remain uncertain, particularly in terms of TC genesis locations and subsequent pathways. Applying a track-pattern-based statistical model to 22 Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) model runs for the historical period and the future period corresponding to the Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 emissions scenarios, this study shows that in future climate conditions, TC passage frequency will decrease over the North Atlantic, particularly in the Gulf of Mexico, but will increase over the western North Pacific, especially that hits Korea and Japan. Unlike previous studies based on fine-resolution models, an ensemble mean of CMIP5 models projects an increase in TC activity in the western North Pacific, which is owing to enhanced subtropical deep convection and favorable dynamic conditions therein in conjunction with the expansion of the tropics and vice versa for the North Atlantic. Our results suggest that North America will experience less TC landfalls, while northeast Asia will experience more TCs than in the present-day climate.
Highlights
The impact of future climate change on tropical cyclone (TC) activities has been examined in many previous studies, which closely agrees with one another in terms of the global average
This study employs a track-pattern-based statistical method adopted from the operational statistical-dynamical hybrid system used at the National Typhoon Center of the Korean Meteorological Administration for seasonal forecasting of the North Atlantic (NA) and western North Pacific (WNP) TC activity[26,27]
It is possible to apply the present-day clusters for analyzing future TC track changes as we are more interested in TC impacts that occur on the coastline of countries
Summary
Design and performance of statistical model used. This study employs a track-pattern-based statistical method adopted from the operational statistical-dynamical hybrid system used at the National Typhoon Center of the Korean Meteorological Administration for seasonal forecasting of the North Atlantic (NA) and western North Pacific (WNP) TC activity[26,27]. According to our projections of future TC activities using the track-pattern-based model in conjunction with CMIP5, downward and upward trends in the TC frequency predominates in the NA and the WNP basins from 1861 to 2099, respectively (Fig. 2 and Table 1). In terms of the total frequency, i.e., summing up over all four clusters, the number of the NA TCs decreases by 1.6 on average in the late 21st century compared to the present-day climate Such decreases are found in 17 CMIP5 models with 14 of them statistically significant. The regression coefficients of convective precipitation for both basins are about two to five times larger than those of relative vorticity and vertical wind shear This indicates that convective potential is a major driver of TC formation. The tropical cyclone formation can increase south of 20°N even though the increase is not as large as that in the north of 20°N
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