TY - JOUR
T1 - Simulated changes to tropical cyclones across the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) boundary
AU - Kiehl, Jeffrey T.
AU - Zarzycki, Colin M.
AU - Shields, Christine A.
AU - Rothstein, Mathew V.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors thank two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments which have improved this work. The authors thank the Heising-Simons Foundation for supporting C. Shields and M. Rothstein. C. Zarzycki's contribution was supported by U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research program under Award Number DE-SC0016605 “A framework for improving analysis and modeling of Earth system and intersectoral dynamics at regional scales.” Computational resources were accomplished via the Computational and Information Systems Laboratory. 2019. Cheyenne: HPE/SGI ICE XA System NCAR Strategic Capability, (NSC), Boulder, CO: National Center for Atmospheric Research. doi: https://doi.org/10.5065/D6RX99HX , and the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE), which is supported by National Science Foundation grant number ACI-1548562 . The authors thank Kevin Reed's research group for providing analysis code that served as the foundation for the GPI calculations. The authors also thank Nan Rosenbloom for providing the CESM future climate simulation output and Will Rush for the reference to tempestities in Iraq.
Funding Information:
The authors thank two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments which have improved this work. The authors thank the Heising-Simons Foundation for supporting C. Shields and M. Rothstein. C. Zarzycki's contribution was supported by U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research program under Award Number DE-SC0016605 ?A framework for improving analysis and modeling of Earth system and intersectoral dynamics at regional scales.? Computational resources were accomplished via the Computational and Information Systems Laboratory. 2019. Cheyenne: HPE/SGI ICE XA System NCAR Strategic Capability, (NSC), Boulder, CO: National Center for Atmospheric Research. doi:https://doi.org/10.5065/D6RX99HX, and the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE), which is supported by National Science Foundation grant number ACI-1548562. The authors thank Kevin Reed's research group for providing analysis code that served as the foundation for the GPI calculations. The authors also thank Nan Rosenbloom for providing the CESM future climate simulation output and Will Rush for the reference to tempestities in Iraq.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Authors
PY - 2021/6/15
Y1 - 2021/6/15
N2 - Tropical cyclones are an important meteorological and climatological process in Earth's climate system. These intense, localized storms mainly form over warm equatorial oceans, and propagate poleward. During their lifetime, tropical cyclones can strengthen leading to intense winds and rainfall events. These storms also carry moist energy that contribute to the poleward transport of atmospheric energy. Presently, concern exists about how the characteristics of tropical cyclones will change in a future warming world. The Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) was a time in Earth's deep past in which the planet warmed by 5° - 8 °C due to an increase in atmospheric CO2. It is thus of interest to understand how past warming affected tropical cyclone behavior. Here, a high resolution (25 km) atmospheric model is used to study changes in tropical cyclones across the PETM boundary. Orbital variation is also investigated as an additional forcing mechanism at the time of the PETM. The climate simulations indicate that greenhouse forcing leads to a poleward shift in TCs, much like projected future scenarios and in simulations of other warm periods in Earth history. It is also found that the orbital forcing response is very different than the greenhouse cases due to the difference in thermal response, which, in turn, induces a different dynamical response in wind shear. Although the spatial pattern between changes across the PETM and the future differ, there are still many similarities in TC response for these two very different periods in time, indicating the robustness of the TC response to greenhouse warming.
AB - Tropical cyclones are an important meteorological and climatological process in Earth's climate system. These intense, localized storms mainly form over warm equatorial oceans, and propagate poleward. During their lifetime, tropical cyclones can strengthen leading to intense winds and rainfall events. These storms also carry moist energy that contribute to the poleward transport of atmospheric energy. Presently, concern exists about how the characteristics of tropical cyclones will change in a future warming world. The Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) was a time in Earth's deep past in which the planet warmed by 5° - 8 °C due to an increase in atmospheric CO2. It is thus of interest to understand how past warming affected tropical cyclone behavior. Here, a high resolution (25 km) atmospheric model is used to study changes in tropical cyclones across the PETM boundary. Orbital variation is also investigated as an additional forcing mechanism at the time of the PETM. The climate simulations indicate that greenhouse forcing leads to a poleward shift in TCs, much like projected future scenarios and in simulations of other warm periods in Earth history. It is also found that the orbital forcing response is very different than the greenhouse cases due to the difference in thermal response, which, in turn, induces a different dynamical response in wind shear. Although the spatial pattern between changes across the PETM and the future differ, there are still many similarities in TC response for these two very different periods in time, indicating the robustness of the TC response to greenhouse warming.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85105834612&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85105834612&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.palaeo.2021.110421
DO - 10.1016/j.palaeo.2021.110421
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85105834612
VL - 572
JO - Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology
JF - Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology
SN - 0031-0182
M1 - 110421
ER -
