Journal article
Tropical cyclone sensitivities to CO2 doubling: roles of atmospheric resolution, synoptic variability and background climate changes
Climate dynamics, Vol.53(9-10), pp.5999-6033
08/13/2019
DOI: 10.1007/s00382-019-04913-y
Abstract
Responses of tropical cyclones (TCs) to CO
2
doubling are explored using coupled global climate models (GCMs) with increasingly refined atmospheric/land horizontal grids (~ 200 km, ~ 50 km and ~ 25 km). The three models exhibit similar changes in background climate fields thought to regulate TC activity, such as relative sea surface temperature (SST), potential intensity, and wind shear. However, global TC frequency decreases substantially in the 50 km model, while the 25 km model shows no significant change. The ~ 25 km model also has a substantial and spatially-ubiquitous increase of Category 3–4–5 hurricanes. Idealized perturbation experiments are performed to understand the TC response. Each model’s transient fully-coupled 2 × CO
2
TC activity response is largely recovered by “time-slice” experiments using time-invariant SST perturbations added to each model’s own SST climatology. The TC response to SST forcing depends on each model’s background climatological SST biases: removing these biases leads to a global TC intensity increase in the ~ 50 km model, and a global TC frequency increase in the ~ 25 km model, in response to CO
2
-induced warming patterns and CO
2
doubling. Isolated CO
2
doubling leads to a significant TC frequency decrease, while isolated uniform SST warming leads to a significant global TC frequency increase; the ~ 25 km model has a greater tendency for frequency increase. Global TC frequency responds to both (1) changes in TC “seeds”, which increase due to warming (more so in the ~ 25 km model) and decrease due to higher CO
2
concentrations, and (2) less efficient development of these“seeds” into TCs, largely due to the nonlinear relation between temperature and saturation specific humidity.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Tropical cyclone sensitivities to CO2 doubling: roles of atmospheric resolution, synoptic variability and background climate changes
- Creators
- Gabriel A Vecchi - Princeton UniversityWei Zhang - University of IowaThomas L Delworth - Princeton UniversityGabriele Villarini - University of IowaHiroyuki Murakami - Princeton UniversitySeth D Underwood - National Oceanic and Atmospheric AdministrationAndrew T Wittenberg - National Oceanic and Atmospheric AdministrationFanrong Zeng - National Oceanic and Atmospheric AdministrationJane W Baldwin - Princeton UniversityKieran T Bhatia - Princeton UniversityWilliam Cooke - National Oceanic and Atmospheric AdministrationJie He - Princeton UniversitySarah B Kapnick - National Oceanic and Atmospheric AdministrationThomas R Knutson - National Oceanic and Atmospheric AdministrationKarin van der Wiel - Royal Netherlands Meteorological InstituteWhit Anderson - National Oceanic and Atmospheric AdministrationV Balaji - Princeton UniversityJan–Huey Chen - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Geophysical Fluid Dynamics LaboratoryKeith W Dixon - National Oceanic and Atmospheric AdministrationRich Gudgel - National Oceanic and Atmospheric AdministrationLucas M Harris - National Oceanic and Atmospheric AdministrationLiwei Jia - National Oceanic and Atmospheric AdministrationNathaniel C Johnson - Princeton UniversityShian-Jiann Lin - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Geophysical Fluid Dynamics LaboratoryMaofeng Liu - Princeton UniversityChing Ho Justin Ng - Princeton UniversityAnthony Rosati - National Oceanic and Atmospheric AdministrationJames A Smith - Princeton UniversityXiaosong Yang - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Climate dynamics, Vol.53(9-10), pp.5999-6033
- Publisher
- Springer Berlin Heidelberg
- DOI
- 10.1007/s00382-019-04913-y
- ISSN
- 0930-7575
- eISSN
- 1432-0894
- Grant note
- NA14OAR4830101; NA14OAR4320106; NAOAR4320123 / National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000192) NA18OAR4310418 / NOAA Research (http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100013864) EAR-1520683 / National Science Foundation (http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000001)
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 08/13/2019
- Academic Unit
- IIHR--Hydroscience and Engineering; Civil and Environmental Engineering
- Record Identifier
- 9984197167602771
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