scholarly journals Recent developments in statistical prediction of seasonal Atlantic basin tropical cyclone activity

2007 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 511-518 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip J. Klotzbach
2007 ◽  
Vol 22 (5) ◽  
pp. 937-949 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip J. Klotzbach

Abstract Predictions of the remainder of the season’s Atlantic basin tropical cyclone activity from 1 August have been issued by Gray and his colleagues at the Tropical Meteorology Project at Colorado State University since 1984. The original 1 August prediction scheme utilized several predictors, including measures of the stratospheric quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO), West African rainfall, El Niño–Southern Oscillation, and the sea level pressure anomaly and upper-tropospheric zonal wind anomalies in the Caribbean basin. The recent failure of the West African rainfall and QBO relationships with Atlantic hurricanes has led to a general degradation of the original 1 August forecast scheme in recent years. It was decided to revise the scheme using only surface data. The development of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction–National Center for Atmospheric Research reanalysis has provided a vast wealth of globally gridded meteorological and oceanic data from 1948 to the present. In addition, other datasets have been extended back even further (to 1900), which allows for a large independent dataset. These longer-period datasets allow for an extended period of testing of the new statistical forecast scheme. A new prediction scheme has been developed on data from 1949 to 1989 and then tested on two independent datasets. One of these datasets is the 16-yr period from 1990 to 2005, and the other dataset is from 1900 to 1948. This allows for an investigation of the statistical significance over various time periods. The statistical scheme shows remarkable stability over an entire century. The combination of these four predictors explains between 45% and 60% of the variance in net tropical cyclone activity over the following separate time periods: 1900–48, 1949–89, 1949–2005, and 1900–2005. The forecast scheme also shows considerable skill as a potential predictor for giving the probabilities of United States landfall. Large differences in U.S. major hurricane landfall are also observed between forecasts that call for active seasons compared with those that call for inactive seasons.


1993 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
William M. Gray ◽  
Christopher W. Landsea ◽  
Paul W. Mielke ◽  
Kenneth J. Berry

2008 ◽  
Vol 21 (15) ◽  
pp. 3929-3935 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip J. Klotzbach ◽  
William M. Gray

Abstract Recent increases in Atlantic basin tropical cyclone activity since 1995 and the associated destructive U.S. landfall events in 2004 and 2005 have generated considerable interest into why there has been such a sharp upturn. Natural variability, human-induced global warming, or a combination of both factors, have been suggested. Several previous studies have discussed observed multidecadal variability in the North Atlantic over 25–40-yr time scales. This study, using data from 1878 to the present, creates a metric based on far North Atlantic sea surface temperature anomalies and basinwide North Atlantic sea level pressure anomalies that shows remarkable agreement with observed multidecadal variability in both Atlantic basin tropical cyclone activity and in U.S. landfall frequency.


1994 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
William M. Gray ◽  
Christopher W. Landsea ◽  
Paul W. Mielke ◽  
Kenneth J. Berry

The Holocene ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (10) ◽  
pp. 1664-1671 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Oliva ◽  
Andre E Viau ◽  
Matthew C Peros ◽  
Marc Bouchard

Paleotempestology, the study of past tropical cyclone activity, has grown considerably over the past two decades, and there is now a relatively dense network of sites across the Western North Atlantic Basin providing records of past tropical cyclone variability. This paper presents a new database of paleotempestological records generated from 61 studies published between 1993 and 2018 for this region. A total of 266 data entries, consisting of the calibrated ages of individual tropical cyclone events and the boundaries of ‘active’ tropical cyclone periods from the present to 8000 cal. yr BP, along with the site names, geographic coordinates, proxy indicator(s) used, materials upon which dating was undertaken, and information about the depositional basin type (e.g. lagoon, mangrove), are included in the database for each site. The database is housed at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) ( https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/study/21391 ) and is available for free download. This publicly available database will permit a greater number of researchers to work on questions related to past tropical cyclone dynamics and more easily allow studies of long-term spatial-temporal tropical cyclone relationships to be undertaken.


2011 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 1252-1263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip J. Klotzbach

Abstract El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) has been shown in many previous papers to impact seasonal levels of Atlantic basin tropical cyclone activity. This paper revisits this relationship by examining a longer period (1900–2009) than has been examined in earlier analyses. Alterations in large-scale climate parameters, especially vertical wind shear, are shown to be the primary reasons why tropical cyclone activity in the Atlantic is reduced in El Niño years. Climate signals are found to be somewhat stronger in the Caribbean than for the remainder of the tropical Atlantic. The focus of the paper then shifts to U.S. landfalls, confirming previous research that U.S. landfalls are reduced in El Niño years. The reduction in landfall frequency is greater along the Florida peninsula and East Coast than it is along the Gulf Coast, especially for major hurricanes. The probability of each state being impacted by a hurricane and major hurricane is given for El Niño, La Niña, and neutral years. The most dramatic probability differences between warm and cold ENSO events lie along the East Coast and, in particular, the state of North Carolina. The relationship between ENSO and the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation (AMO) is also examined. In general, the negative phase of the AMO is characterized by a stronger ENSO modulation signal than a positive phase of the AMO.


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