Feb 7, 2019
Recent increases in tropical cyclone intensification rates
by
,
Nature Communications
- States that rapidly intensifying cyclones are typically associated with the highest forecast errors and cause a disproportionate amount of human and financial losses
- Authors utilize two observational datasets to calculate 24-hour wind speed changes over the period 1982–2009
- They compare the observed trends to natural variability in bias-corrected, high-resolution, global coupled model experiments that accurately simulate the climatological distribution of tropical cyclone intensification
- Both observed datasets show significant increases in tropical cyclone intensification rates in the Atlantic basin that are highly unusual compared to model-based estimates of internal climate variations
- Our results suggest a detectable increase of Atlantic intensification rates with a positive contribution from anthropogenic forcing and reveal a need for more reliable data before detecting a robust trend at the global scale