Assessing Impacts of Global Warming on Tropical Cyclone Tracks

Abstract A new approach is proposed to assess the possible impacts of the global climate change on tropical cyclone (TC) tracks in the western North Pacific (WNP) basin. The idea is based on the premise that the future change of TC track characteristics is primarily determined by changes in large-scale environmental steering flows and in formation locations. It is demonstrated that the main characteristics of the current climatology of TC tracks can be derived from the climatological mean velocity field of TC motion by using a trajectory model. The climatological mean velocity of TC motion, composed of the large-scale steering and beta drift, is determined on each grid of the basin. The mean large-scale steering flow is computed from the NCEP–NCAR reanalysis for the current climate state. The mean beta drift is estimated from the best-track data by removing the steering flow. The derived mean beta drift agrees well with the results of previous observational and numerical studies in terms of its direction ...

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