ABSTRACT:

This study examines the climatology and structure of rainfall associated with tropical cyclones (TCs) based on the atmosphere-only Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) HighResMIP runs of the PRocess-based climate sIMulation: AdVances in high resolution modelling and European climate Risk Assessment (PRIMAVERA) Project during 1979–2014. We evaluate how the spatial resolution of climate models with a variety of dynamic cores and parameterization schemes affects the representation of TC rainfall. These HighResMIP atmosphere-only runs that prescribe historical sea surface temperatures and radiative forcings can well reproduce the observed spatial pattern of TC rainfall climatology, with high-resolution models generally performing better than the low-resolution ones. Overall, the HighResMIP atmosphere-only runs can also reproduce the observed percentage contribution of TC rainfall to total amounts, with an overall better performance by the high-resolution models. The models perform better over ocean than over land in simulating climatological total TC rainfall, TC rainfall proportion and TC rainfall per TC in terms of spatial correlation. All the models in the HighResMIP atmosphere-only runs underestimate the observed composite TC rainfall structure over both land and ocean, especially in their lower resolutions. The underestimation of rainfall composites by the HighResMIP atmosphere-only runs is also supported by the radial profile of TC rainfall. Overall, the increased spatial resolution generally leads to an improved model performance in reproducing the observed TC rainfall properties.

ABSTRACT:

Atlantic tropical cyclones (TCs) can cause significant societal and economic impacts, as 2019’s Dorian serves to remind us of these storms’ destructiveness. Decades of effort to understand and predict Atlantic TC activity have improved seasonal forecast skill, but large uncertainties still remain, in part due to an incomplete understanding of the drivers of TC variability. Here we identify an association between the East Asian Subtropical Jet Stream (EASJ) during July-October and the frequency of Atlantic TCs (wind speed ≥ 34 knot) and hurricanes (wind speed ≥ 64 knot) during August-November based on observations for 1980-2018. This strong association is tied to the impacts of EASJ on a stationary Rossby wave train emanating from East Asia and the tropical Pacific to the North Atlantic, leading to changes in vertical wind shear in the Atlantic Main Development Region (80°W-20°W, 10°N-20°N).

ABSTRACT:

This data set includes tropical cyclone-like storm systems - medicanes tracked from ERA5 reanalysis data during 1979-2016. This data set has been used for a manuscript entitled "Examining the Precipitation Associated with Medicanes in the High-Resolution ERA-5 Reanalysis Data" which is under review.