Impact of Ocean Warming on Tropical Cyclone Size and Its Destructiveness.
Yuan Sun, Zhong Zhong, Tim Li, Lan Yi, Yijia Hu, Hongchao Wan, Haishan Chen, Qianfeng Liao, Chen Ma, Qihua Li
Author Information
Yuan Sun: Key Laboratory of Meteorological Disaster, Ministry of Education (KLME)/Joint International Research Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Change (ILCEC)/Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters (CIC-FEMD), Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210044, China.
Zhong Zhong: College of Meteorology and Oceanography, National University of Defense Technology, Nanjing, 211101, China.
Tim Li: Key Laboratory of Meteorological Disaster, Ministry of Education (KLME)/Joint International Research Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Change (ILCEC)/Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters (CIC-FEMD), Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210044, China. timli@hawaii.edu.
Lan Yi: Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences/Chinese Meteorological Society, Beijing, 100081, China.
Yijia Hu: College of Meteorology and Oceanography, National University of Defense Technology, Nanjing, 211101, China.
Haishan Chen: Key Laboratory of Meteorological Disaster, Ministry of Education (KLME)/Joint International Research Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Change (ILCEC)/Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters (CIC-FEMD), Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210044, China.
Qianfeng Liao: College of Meteorology and Oceanography, National University of Defense Technology, Nanjing, 211101, China.
Chen Ma: Key Laboratory of Meteorological Disaster, Ministry of Education (KLME)/Joint International Research Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Change (ILCEC)/Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters (CIC-FEMD), Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210044, China.
Qihua Li: College of Meteorology and Oceanography, National University of Defense Technology, Nanjing, 211101, China.
The response of tropical cyclone (TC) destructive potential to global warming is an open issue. A number of previous studies have ignored the effect of TC size change in the context of global warming, which resulted in a significant underestimation of the TC destructive potential. The lack of reliable and consistent historical data on TC size limits the confident estimation of the linkage between the observed trend in TC size and that in sea surface temperature (SST) under the background of global climate warming. A regional atmospheric model is used in the present study to investigate the response of TC size and TC destructive potential to increases in SST. The results show that a large-scale ocean warming can lead to not only TC intensification but also TC expansion. The TC size increase in response to the ocean warming is possibly attributed to the increase in atmospheric convective instability in the TC outer region below the middle troposphere, which facilitates the local development of grid-scale ascending motion, low-level convergence and the acceleration of tangential winds. The numerical results indicate that TCs will become stronger, larger, and unexpectedly more destructive under global warming.
References
Science. 2008 Oct 31;322(5902):687-9
[PMID: 18974337]
Science. 2006 Mar 24;311(5768):1713; author reply 1713
[PMID: 16556825]
Nature. 2005 Aug 4;436(7051):686-8
[PMID: 16056221]
