Comparison of explicitly simulated and downscaled tropical cyclone activity in a high-resolution global climate model
The response of tropical cyclone activity to climate change is a matter of great inherent interest and practical importance. Most current global climate models are not, however, capable of adequately resolving tropical cyclones; this has led to the development of downscaling techniques designed to i...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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American Geophysical Union
2011
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/60397 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2066-2082 |
| _version_ | 1826199254709829632 |
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| author | Emanuel, Kerry Andrew Oouchi, Kazuyoshi Satoh, Masaki Yamada, Yohei |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences Emanuel, Kerry Andrew Oouchi, Kazuyoshi Satoh, Masaki Yamada, Yohei |
| author_sort | Emanuel, Kerry Andrew |
| collection | MIT |
| description | The response of tropical cyclone activity to climate change is a matter of great inherent interest and practical importance. Most current global climate models are not, however, capable of adequately resolving tropical cyclones; this has led to the development of downscaling techniques designed to infer tropical cyclone activity from the large-scale fields produced by climate models. Here we compare the statistics of tropical cyclones simulated explicitly in a very high resolution (~14 km grid mesh) global climate model to the results of one such downscaling technique driven by the same global model. This is done for a simulation of the current climate and also for a simulation of a climate warmed by the addition of carbon dioxide. The explicitly simulated and downscaled storms are similarly distributed in space, but the intensity distribution of the downscaled events has a somewhat longer high-intensity tail, owing to the higher resolution of the downscaling model. Both explicitly simulated and downscaled events show large increases in the frequency of events at the high-intensity ends of their respective intensity distributions, but the downscaled storms also show increases in low-intensity events, whereas the explicitly simulated weaker events decline in number. On the regional scale, there are large differences in the responses of the explicitly simulated and downscaled events to global warming. In particular, the power dissipation of downscaled events shows a 175% increase in the Atlantic, while the power dissipation of explicitly simulated events declines there. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T11:17:10Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/60397 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T11:17:10Z |
| publishDate | 2011 |
| publisher | American Geophysical Union |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/603972022-09-27T18:25:12Z Comparison of explicitly simulated and downscaled tropical cyclone activity in a high-resolution global climate model Emanuel, Kerry Andrew Oouchi, Kazuyoshi Satoh, Masaki Yamada, Yohei Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences Emanuel, Kerry Andrew Emanuel, Kerry Andrew The response of tropical cyclone activity to climate change is a matter of great inherent interest and practical importance. Most current global climate models are not, however, capable of adequately resolving tropical cyclones; this has led to the development of downscaling techniques designed to infer tropical cyclone activity from the large-scale fields produced by climate models. Here we compare the statistics of tropical cyclones simulated explicitly in a very high resolution (~14 km grid mesh) global climate model to the results of one such downscaling technique driven by the same global model. This is done for a simulation of the current climate and also for a simulation of a climate warmed by the addition of carbon dioxide. The explicitly simulated and downscaled storms are similarly distributed in space, but the intensity distribution of the downscaled events has a somewhat longer high-intensity tail, owing to the higher resolution of the downscaling model. Both explicitly simulated and downscaled events show large increases in the frequency of events at the high-intensity ends of their respective intensity distributions, but the downscaled storms also show increases in low-intensity events, whereas the explicitly simulated weaker events decline in number. On the regional scale, there are large differences in the responses of the explicitly simulated and downscaled events to global warming. In particular, the power dissipation of downscaled events shows a 175% increase in the Atlantic, while the power dissipation of explicitly simulated events declines there. National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant 0756308) 2011-01-07T15:20:13Z 2011-01-07T15:20:13Z 2010-10 2010-06 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 1942-2466 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/60397 Emanuel, Kerry, Oouchi, Kazuyoshi, Satoh, Masaki, Tomita, Hirofumi, AND Yamada, Yohei. "Comparison of Explicitly Simulated and Downscaled Tropical Cyclone Activity in a High-Resolution Global Climate Model" Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems [Online] Volume 2 Number 9 (11 October 2010)©2010 American Geophysical Union https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2066-2082 en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.3894/JAMES.2010.2.9 Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 application/pdf American Geophysical Union MIT web domain |
| spellingShingle | Emanuel, Kerry Andrew Oouchi, Kazuyoshi Satoh, Masaki Yamada, Yohei Comparison of explicitly simulated and downscaled tropical cyclone activity in a high-resolution global climate model |
| title | Comparison of explicitly simulated and downscaled tropical cyclone activity in a high-resolution global climate model |
| title_full | Comparison of explicitly simulated and downscaled tropical cyclone activity in a high-resolution global climate model |
| title_fullStr | Comparison of explicitly simulated and downscaled tropical cyclone activity in a high-resolution global climate model |
| title_full_unstemmed | Comparison of explicitly simulated and downscaled tropical cyclone activity in a high-resolution global climate model |
| title_short | Comparison of explicitly simulated and downscaled tropical cyclone activity in a high-resolution global climate model |
| title_sort | comparison of explicitly simulated and downscaled tropical cyclone activity in a high resolution global climate model |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/60397 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2066-2082 |
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