Monitoring and Understanding Trends in Extreme Storms: State of Knowledge
The state of knowledge regarding trends and an understanding of their causes is presented for a specific subset of extreme weather and climate types. For severe convective storms (tornadoes, hailstorms, and severe thunderstorms), differences in time and space of practices of collecting reports of ev...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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American Meteorological Society
2013
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/81287 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2066-2082 |
| _version_ | 1811084529095409664 |
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| author | Kunkel, Kenneth E. Karl, Thomas R. Brooks, Harold Kossin, James P. Lawrimore, Jay H. Arndt, Derek Bosart, Lance Changnon, David Cutter, Susan L. Doesken, Nolan Groisman, Pavel Ya. Katz, Richard W. Knutson, Thomas R. O'Brien, James Paciorek, Christopher J. Peterson, Thomas C. Redmond, Kelly Robinson, David Trapp, Jeff Vose, Russell Weaver, Scott Wehner, Michael Wolter, Klaus Wuebbles, Donald Emanuel, Kerry Andrew |
| 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 Kunkel, Kenneth E. Karl, Thomas R. Brooks, Harold Kossin, James P. Lawrimore, Jay H. Arndt, Derek Bosart, Lance Changnon, David Cutter, Susan L. Doesken, Nolan Groisman, Pavel Ya. Katz, Richard W. Knutson, Thomas R. O'Brien, James Paciorek, Christopher J. Peterson, Thomas C. Redmond, Kelly Robinson, David Trapp, Jeff Vose, Russell Weaver, Scott Wehner, Michael Wolter, Klaus Wuebbles, Donald Emanuel, Kerry Andrew |
| author_sort | Kunkel, Kenneth E. |
| collection | MIT |
| description | The state of knowledge regarding trends and an understanding of their causes is presented for a specific subset of extreme weather and climate types. For severe convective storms (tornadoes, hailstorms, and severe thunderstorms), differences in time and space of practices of collecting reports of events make using the reporting database to detect trends extremely difficult. Overall, changes in the frequency of environments favorable for severe thunderstorms have not been statistically significant. For extreme precipitation, there is strong evidence for a nationally averaged upward trend in the frequency and intensity of events. The causes of the observed trends have not been determined with certainty, although there is evidence that increasing atmospheric water vapor may be one factor. For hurricanes and typhoons, robust detection of trends in Atlantic and western North Pacific tropical cyclone (TC) activity is significantly constrained by data heterogeneity and deficient quantification of internal variability. Attribution of past TC changes is further challenged by a lack of consensus on the physical link- ages between climate forcing and TC activity. As a result, attribution of trends to anthropogenic forcing remains controversial. For severe snowstorms and ice storms, the number of severe regional snowstorms that occurred since 1960 was more than twice that of the preceding 60 years. There are no significant multidecadal trends in the areal percentage of the contiguous United States impacted by extreme seasonal snowfall amounts since 1900. There is no distinguishable trend in the frequency of ice storms for the United States as a whole since 1950. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T12:52:25Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/81287 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T12:52:25Z |
| publishDate | 2013 |
| publisher | American Meteorological Society |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/812872022-09-28T10:35:53Z Monitoring and Understanding Trends in Extreme Storms: State of Knowledge Kunkel, Kenneth E. Karl, Thomas R. Brooks, Harold Kossin, James P. Lawrimore, Jay H. Arndt, Derek Bosart, Lance Changnon, David Cutter, Susan L. Doesken, Nolan Groisman, Pavel Ya. Katz, Richard W. Knutson, Thomas R. O'Brien, James Paciorek, Christopher J. Peterson, Thomas C. Redmond, Kelly Robinson, David Trapp, Jeff Vose, Russell Weaver, Scott Wehner, Michael Wolter, Klaus Wuebbles, Donald Emanuel, Kerry Andrew Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences Emanuel, Kerry Andrew The state of knowledge regarding trends and an understanding of their causes is presented for a specific subset of extreme weather and climate types. For severe convective storms (tornadoes, hailstorms, and severe thunderstorms), differences in time and space of practices of collecting reports of events make using the reporting database to detect trends extremely difficult. Overall, changes in the frequency of environments favorable for severe thunderstorms have not been statistically significant. For extreme precipitation, there is strong evidence for a nationally averaged upward trend in the frequency and intensity of events. The causes of the observed trends have not been determined with certainty, although there is evidence that increasing atmospheric water vapor may be one factor. For hurricanes and typhoons, robust detection of trends in Atlantic and western North Pacific tropical cyclone (TC) activity is significantly constrained by data heterogeneity and deficient quantification of internal variability. Attribution of past TC changes is further challenged by a lack of consensus on the physical link- ages between climate forcing and TC activity. As a result, attribution of trends to anthropogenic forcing remains controversial. For severe snowstorms and ice storms, the number of severe regional snowstorms that occurred since 1960 was more than twice that of the preceding 60 years. There are no significant multidecadal trends in the areal percentage of the contiguous United States impacted by extreme seasonal snowfall amounts since 1900. There is no distinguishable trend in the frequency of ice storms for the United States as a whole since 1950. United States. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Climate Program Office (Award NA07OAR4310063) Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites, North Carolina (Cooperative Agreement NA09NES4400006) 2013-10-03T15:16:34Z 2013-10-03T15:16:34Z 2013-04 2012-05 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0003-0007 1520-0477 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/81287 Kunkel, Kenneth E., Thomas R. Karl, Harold Brooks, James Kossin, Jay H. Lawrimore, Derek Arndt, Lance Bosart, et al. “Monitoring and Understanding Trends in Extreme Storms: State of Knowledge.” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 94, no. 4 (April 2013): 499-514. © 2013 American Meteorological Society https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2066-2082 en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00262.1 Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. application/pdf American Meteorological Society American Meteorological Society |
| spellingShingle | Kunkel, Kenneth E. Karl, Thomas R. Brooks, Harold Kossin, James P. Lawrimore, Jay H. Arndt, Derek Bosart, Lance Changnon, David Cutter, Susan L. Doesken, Nolan Groisman, Pavel Ya. Katz, Richard W. Knutson, Thomas R. O'Brien, James Paciorek, Christopher J. Peterson, Thomas C. Redmond, Kelly Robinson, David Trapp, Jeff Vose, Russell Weaver, Scott Wehner, Michael Wolter, Klaus Wuebbles, Donald Emanuel, Kerry Andrew Monitoring and Understanding Trends in Extreme Storms: State of Knowledge |
| title | Monitoring and Understanding Trends in Extreme Storms: State of Knowledge |
| title_full | Monitoring and Understanding Trends in Extreme Storms: State of Knowledge |
| title_fullStr | Monitoring and Understanding Trends in Extreme Storms: State of Knowledge |
| title_full_unstemmed | Monitoring and Understanding Trends in Extreme Storms: State of Knowledge |
| title_short | Monitoring and Understanding Trends in Extreme Storms: State of Knowledge |
| title_sort | monitoring and understanding trends in extreme storms state of knowledge |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/81287 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2066-2082 |
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