How does globally accumulated tropical cyclone energy vary in response to a changing climate?

Kaiyue Shan; Fengfei Song; Yanluan Lin; Wenchao Chu; Chengfei He; Pao-Shin Chu; Lixin Wu; Xiping Yu

doi:10.1016/j.scib.2024.12.036

How does globally accumulated tropical cyclone energy vary in response to a changing climate?

Sci Bull (Beijing). 2024 Dec 26:S2095-9273(24)00943-5. doi: 10.1016/j.scib.2024.12.036. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Kaiyue Shan¹, Fengfei Song², Yanluan Lin³, Wenchao Chu⁴, Chengfei He⁵, Pao-Shin Chu⁶, Lixin Wu⁷, Xiping Yu⁸

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Hydroscience and Engineering, Department of Hydraulic Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
² Frontier Science Center for Deep Ocean Multispheres and Earth System and Physical Oceanography Laboratory, Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266100, China; Laoshan Laboratory, Qingdao 266100, China. Electronic address: songfengfei@ouc.edu.cn.
³ Department of Earth System Science, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Earth System Modeling, Institute for Global Change Studies, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
⁴ Department of Earth System Science, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Earth System Modeling, Institute for Global Change Studies, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China; Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, NY 10964, USA.
⁵ Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science, University of Miami, Miami, FL 33149, USA; Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA.
⁶ Department of Atmospheric Sciences, School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA.
⁷ Frontier Science Center for Deep Ocean Multispheres and Earth System and Physical Oceanography Laboratory, Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266100, China; Laoshan Laboratory, Qingdao 266100, China.
⁸ Department of Ocean Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China. Electronic address: yuxp@sustech.edu.cn.

PMID: 39765383
DOI: 10.1016/j.scib.2024.12.036

Abstract

How tropical cyclone (TC) activity varies in response to a changing climate is widely debated. The accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) is one of the indicators of TC activity and has attracted considerable attention because of its close relationship with the damages caused by TCs. Previous studies have focused on detecting long-term trends in global ACE; however, the results are inconclusive. Here, it is revealed that the global ACE demonstrates a striking interdecadal variation over the past four decades, with a historical peak occurring in the 1990s. A close relationship between the interdecadal variability of the global ACE and the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) is also identified, with a Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.75 (P < 0.01). When the IPO is in its positive phase, more TCs with a longer lifetime occur owing to greater coverage of weak vertical wind shear (VWS) conditions over the tropics. The coverage of weak VWS conditions can be verified by either prescribing the observed sea surface temperature in atmospheric models or the observed IPO in coupled models, indicating the significant role of the IPO. Our findings show that the IPO affects the interdecadal variability of global TC activity through moderating atmospheric circulations.

Keywords: Accumulated Cyclone Energy; Climate Change; Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation; Tropical Cyclones; Vertical Wind Shear.