Identification

Title

The response of tropical cyclone statistics to an increase in CO₂ with fixed sea surface temperatures

Abstract

The effects on tropical cyclone statistics of doubling CO₂, with fixed sea surface temperatures (SSTs), are compared to the effects of a 2-K increase in SST, with fixed CO₂, using a 50-km resolution global atmospheric model. Confirming earlier results of Yoshimura and Sugi, a significant fraction of the reduction in globally averaged tropical storm frequency seen in simulations in which both SST and CO₂ are increased can be thought of as the effect of the CO₂ increase with fixed SSTs. Globally, the model produces a decrease in tropical cyclone frequency of about 10% due to doubling of CO₂ and an additional 10% for a 2-K increase in SST, resulting in roughly a 20% reduction when both effects are present. The relative contribution of the CO₂ effect to the total reduction is larger in the Northern than in the Southern Hemisphere. The average intensity of storms increases in the model with increasing SST, but intensity remains roughly unchanged, or decreases slightly, with the increase in CO₂ alone. As a result, when considering the frequency of more intense cyclones, the intensity increase tends to compensate for the reduced total cyclone numbers for the SST increase in isolation, but not for the CO₂ increase in isolation. Changes in genesis in these experiments roughly follow changes in mean vertical motion, reflecting changes in convective mass fluxes. Discussion of one possible perspective on how changes in the convective mass flux might alter genesis rates is provided.

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document

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http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7154hrr

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Dataset language

eng

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geoscientificInformation

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publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

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publication

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2011-10-01T00:00:00Z

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Copyright 2011 American Meteorological Society (AMS). Permission to use figures, tables, and brief excerpts from this work in scientific and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be "fair use" under Section 107 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law (17 USC, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the Society's permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form on servers, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statements, requires written permission or license from the AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policies, available from the AMS at 617-227-2425 or amspubs@ametsoc.org. Permission to place a copy of this work on this server has been provided by the AMS. The AMS does not guarantee that the copy provided here is an accurate copy of the published work.

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OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

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pointOfContact

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