Changes in hurricanes from a 13-yr convection-permitting pseudo-global warming simulation

Tropical cyclones have enormous costs to society through both loss of life and damage to infrastructure. There is good reason to believe that such storms will change in the future as a result of changes in the global climate system and that such changes may have important socioeconomic implications. Here a high-resolution regional climate modeling experiment is presented using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model to investigate possible changes in tropical cyclones. These simulations were performed for the period 2001-13 using the ERA-Interim product for the boundary conditions, thus enabling a direct comparison between modeled and observed cyclone characteristics. The WRF simulation reproduced 30 of the 32 named storms that entered the model domain during this period. The model simulates the tropical cyclone tracks, storm radii, and translation speeds well, but the maximum wind speeds simulated were less than observed and the minimum central pressures were too large. This experiment is then repeated after imposing a future climate signal by adding changes in temperature, humidity, pressure, and wind speeds derived from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). In the current climate, 22 tracks were well simulated with little changes in future track locations. These simulations produced tropical cyclones with faster maximum winds, slower storm translation speeds, lower central pressures, and higher precipitation rates. Importantly, while these signals were statistically significant averaged across all 22 storms studied, changes varied substantially between individual storms. This illustrates the importance of using a large ensemble of storms to understand mean changes.

To Access Resource:

Questions? Email Resource Support Contact:

  • opensky@ucar.edu
    UCAR/NCAR - Library

Resource Type publication
Temporal Range Begin N/A
Temporal Range End N/A
Temporal Resolution N/A
Bounding Box North Lat N/A
Bounding Box South Lat N/A
Bounding Box West Long N/A
Bounding Box East Long N/A
Spatial Representation N/A
Spatial Resolution N/A
Related Links

Related Dataset #1 : High Resolution WRF Simulations of the Current and Future Climate of North America

Additional Information N/A
Resource Format PDF
Standardized Resource Format PDF
Asset Size N/A
Legal Constraints

Copyright 2018 American Meteorological Society (AMS).


Access Constraints None
Software Implementation Language N/A

Resource Support Name N/A
Resource Support Email opensky@ucar.edu
Resource Support Organization UCAR/NCAR - Library
Distributor N/A
Metadata Contact Name N/A
Metadata Contact Email opensky@ucar.edu
Metadata Contact Organization UCAR/NCAR - Library

Author Gutmann, Ethan D.
Rasmussen, Roy M.
Liu, Changhai
Ikeda, Kyoko
Bruyere, Cindy L.
Done, James
Garre, Luca
Friis-Hansen, Peter
Veldore, Vidyunmala
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2018-05-01T00:00:00
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Not Assigned
Alternate Identifier N/A
Resource Version N/A
Topic Category geoscientificInformation
Progress N/A
Metadata Date 2023-08-18T19:18:44.243320
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:21583
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Gutmann, Ethan D., Rasmussen, Roy M., Liu, Changhai, Ikeda, Kyoko, Bruyere, Cindy L., Done, James, Garre, Luca, Friis-Hansen, Peter, Veldore, Vidyunmala. (2018). Changes in hurricanes from a 13-yr convection-permitting pseudo-global warming simulation. UCAR/NCAR - Library. http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7708457. Accessed 15 February 2025.

Harvest Source