Detected climatic change in global distribution of tropical cyclones

Details

• Journal Title:
  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
• Personal Author:
  Murakami, Hiroyuki ; Delworth, Thomas L. ; Cooke, William F. ; Zhao, Ming ; Xiang, Baoqiang ; Hsu, Pang-Chi
• NOAA Program & Office:
  OAR (Oceanic and Atmospheric Research) ; GFDL (Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory)
• Description:
  Owing to the limited length of observed tropical cyclone data and the effects of multidecadal internal variability, it has been a challenge to detect trends in tropical cyclone activity on a global scale. However, there is a distinct spatial pattern of the trends in tropical cyclone frequency of occurrence on a global scale since 1980, with substantial decreases in the southern Indian Ocean and western North Pacific and increases in the North Atlantic and central Pacific. Here, using a suite of high-resolution dynamical model experiments, we show that the observed spatial pattern of trends is very unlikely to be explained entirely by underlying multidecadal internal variability; rather, external forcing such as greenhouse gases, aerosols, and volcanic eruptions likely played an important role. This study demonstrates that a climatic change in terms of the global spatial distribution of tropical cyclones has already emerged in observations and may in part be attributable to the increase in greenhouse gas emissions.
• Keywords:
  Climate Change Cyclones Climate Change
• Source:
  PNAS 2020 117 (20) 10706-10714
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1922500117
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Rights Information:
  CC BY-NC-ND
• Compliance:
  Submitted
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:56ea87d85ec986c94539ee390e254103cae4a012a9d83330c1952ab45b2ffccd
• Download URL:
  https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/29785/noaa_29785_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 8.66 MB ]