Authors: Andie Y M AuYeung Johnny C L Chan
Publish Date: 2011/12/18
Volume: 39, Issue: 3-4, Pages: 783-794
Abstract
This study investigates the potential use of a regional climate model in forecasting seasonal tropical cyclone TC activity A modified version of Regional Climate Model Version 3 RegCM3 is used to examine the ability of the model to simulate TC genesis and landfalling TC tracks for the active TC season in the western North Pacific In the model a TC is identified as a vortex satisfying several conditions including local maximum relative vorticity at 850 hPa with a value ≥450 × 10−6 s−1 and the temperature at 300 hPa being 1°C higher than the average temperature within 15° latitude radius from the TC center Tracks are traced by following these found vortices Sixmonth ensemble 8 members each simulations are performed for each year from 1982 to 2001 so that the climatology of the model can be compared to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center JTWC observed besttrack dataset The 20year ensemble experiments show that the RegCM3 can be used to simulate vortices with a wind structure and temperature profile similar to those of real TCs The model also reproduces tracks very similar to those observed with features like genesis in the tropics recurvature at higher latitudes and landfall/decay The similarity of the 500hPa geopotential height patterns between RegCM3 and the European Centre for MediumRange Weather Forecasts 40 Year Reanalysis ERA40 shows that the model can simulate the subtropical high to a large extent The simulated climatological monthly spatial distributions as well as the interannual variability of TC occurrence are also similar to the JTWC data These results imply the possibility of producing seasonal forecasts of tropical cyclones using realtime global climate model predictions as boundary conditions for the RegCM3
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