Exploring Pacific Tropical Cyclones in High-Resolution Climate Model
Climate models at high resolution are capable of realistically simulations of storms. However, some regions like the Western North Pacific produce too few storms. This work demonstrates that the model simulated environment is too dry and cold in the region where storms typically form in the Western North Pacific, impacting the simulation of tropical cyclones.
Improvements in the simulated mean state within the climate model can lead to improvements in the representation of extreme precipitation events, including tropical cyclones.
High-resolution climate models can simulate tropical cyclones (TCs) which can enable the investigation of TCs in relation to the climate system. Previous work with a commonly used climate model demonstrates that TC global climatology can be well simulated for the historical period. However, this work shows that in Western North Pacific (WNP) region the model underestimates storm genesis and location. The lack of mid-level moisture over the Pacific Warm Pool is identified as the leading cause of the deficit in simulated WNP TC genesis. Seasonal model experiments in which the temperature field is nudged toward reanalysis improves TC genesis and intensity development in the WNP. Thus, we find that improvements in the simulated mean state within the climate model can lead to improvements in the representation of extreme precipitation events, including TCs, in such models.