Severe Weather: Hurricanes

Jim Kossin
Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies
University of Wisconsin—Madison
Madison, WI
kossin@ssec.wisc.edu
http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~kossin

National Press Foundation, “Understanding Violent Weather” Program, 12 March 2007

 80-90 tropical cyclones (hurricane/typhoon/cyclone) globally each year.
 One of the most costly natural hazards in terms of life and property.
 North Atlantic, East / West / South Pacific, North / South Indian Oceans.
 Less than 15% occur in North Atlantic.
 Wind, storm surge, fresh water flooding, (lightning, tornadoes)
Operational hurricane forecasting challenges

Primary focus:

 Where is it going? (cross-track)

 When will it arrive? (along-track)
 How strong will it be when it gets there?

Other:

 Big storm (Katrina) or small storm (Charley)?

 How much storm surge? Tides? Coastal topography?
 Rain amounts?
 Present skill (track and intensity)

Hurricane track forecast errors Little increase in intensity

cut in half in past 15 years forecast skill

Prediction of large-scale (environment) versus small-scale

(hurricane) Figures from Franklin et al. (2005)
How does the environment control hurricanes?

Genesis: warm SST, low shear, …, an incipient vortex.

Intensity change: SST, shear, …, landfall, Saharan dust.
Track: larger-scale circulation patterns.

Need to predict the environment that the hurricanes are

traveling through. (Requires good track prediction)

Suppose we could predict the environment and track perfectly.

Could we then have perfect intensity predictions?
The challenge:

Hurricane-scale processes control / modify intensity

 Eye / Eyewall exchanges (meso-vortices)

 Spiral-band (rain-band) processes (RAINEX)
 Eyewall replacement cycles (concentric eyewall cycles)
Model simulation of eye / eyewall exchange (mixing):

Hurricane Alberto (2000)

(figure adapted from Kossin and Eastin 2001, Kossin et al. 2002)
Hurricane Isabel
near local sunrise
on 12 Sep 2003.
  Hurricane Isabel

Model simulation 

(figure adapted from Kossin and Schubert 2001, 2004)

Why do we care?

Small-scale mixing weakening events

affects intensity change

mixing events

(figure adapted from Kossin et al. 2006)

 Eyewall replacement cycles

Primary eyewall

Secondary eyewall
Eyewall replacement cycles usually cause rapid intensity swings.
Particularly problematic as storms approach land (Hurricane Andrew 1992).

Cat 3 to Cat 5
in 12 hours
Cat 3 Cat 3

Cat 5 Cat 5
Cat 5

(figure adapted from Willoughby et al. 1982)

Longer-term forecasting challenges

How are hurricanes affected by climate and climate change?

(How is the climate affected by hurricanes?)

What changes in the level of hurricane activity can we expect

during the next 5, 10, 50, 100 years?
Are there cycles and / or trends?
Are the cycles / trends natural or man-made?
How do we meaningfully measure the changes?

 Frequency (how many?)

 Intensity (how strong?)
 Duration (how long-lasting?)
 Location (where are they? More / less landfall?)

Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE)

Power Dissipation Index (PDI)
Number of Cat 4-5 storms
Systematic (i.e. not random) track changes
Direct relationship between SST and hurricane intensity

The theory of Potential Intensity (PI, MPI)

suggests that, all other things being equal,
an increase of underlying SST will lead to
an increase in the maximum intensity that
a hurricane can achieve.
Relationship between SST and hurricane “activity”

(figure adapted from Emanuel 2005)

Reflects changes in frequency, intensity, and duration

Changes in frequency of the most intense hurricanes

(figure from Webster et al. 2005)

Relationship between SST and hurricane location / track

(figure from Kossin and Vimont 2007)

The relationship with SST is part of a more general relationship with the
Atlantic Meridional Mode (AMM). The AMM describes large-scale
circulation patterns that go beyond the limitations of Potential Intensity
theory.
Data issues…
A Brief History of the Global Hurricane Record

Post WW-II Aircraft Age of the Weather

Reconnaissance Satellites

1950’s 1970’s

Occasional measurements. Sporadic measurements. Hourly measurements.

Serendipitous sources.
Maximum intensity rarely
measured.
Storm counts may be low.
Mostly Atlantic. Almost global.
West Pacific until 1987. The counts are good.
Maximum intensity rarely
measured.
Storm counts are better.

The existing record is inconsistent by its nature and its construction.

Data reanalysis

Variability and
increases in the
Atlantic verify well.
Global trends may
be inflated.

(figure adapted from

Kossin et al. 2007)
Why are Atlantic hurricanes apparently reacting more
markedly to warming SST than storms in other ocean
basins?

The answer may lie in the way SST is related to other

factors that affect hurricanes:
 All climatic factors cooperate in the Atlantic. They are
either all favorable or all unfavorable.
 This is not true in other basins. One factor might be
favorable while another is unfavorable. The factors offset
each other.

(from Vimont and Kossin 2007)

Changes in the long-term records

Human-induced variability and increases, natural cycles, or

both?
The Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO)

Hypothesis #1: The AMO is a natural cycle related to periodic

changes in the thermohaline circulation (a.k.a. the Atlantic
conveyor belt). This natural cycle is superimposed on a smaller
man-made trend. Under this hypothesis, SST is expected to
eventually decrease to a long-term cooler regime.

Hypothesis #2: The signal known as the AMO is actually just

a superposition of two human-induced signals – anthropogenic
greenhouse gas warming and sulphate aerosols. Under this
hypothesis, SST is expected to continue its present rate of
human-induced increase with no natural cycle to help offset it.
Summary:
Hurricane forecasting faces many challenges in both an operational setting
and toward long-term risk assessment.
Operational intensity forecasts are challenged by the broad spectrum of
scales that matter (environment to hurricane scale).
Long-term forecasting is challenged by our present lack of understanding of
the relationships between hurricanes and climate change.

Questions:
How will frequency, intensity, and tracks change?
Could the effects of increasing SST be offset by more frequent eyewall
replacement cycles and/or mixing events?
Why is the Atlantic changing so profoundly?
Is the present high Atlantic activity just a phase of a cycle or will it continue
indefinitely?
Relationship between the AMM and the 3 factors comprising
hurricane activity (frequency, duration, intensity)

Correlations of
raw / low-pass / high-pass
Raw time series
time series.
Bold  significant.

AMM

SFREQ +0.54 / +0.60 / +0.31

SDUR +0.47 / +0.47 / +0.54
VAVG +0.33 / +0.44 / +0.18
An explanation for the variability of duration

Raw time series

AMM
LAT –0.52 / –0.71 / –0.38
LON +0.30 / +0.16 / +0.47

There is a systematic shift of the mean tropical cyclogenesis region to the

southeast (northwest) during positive (negative) phases of the AMM. Since
storms generally track westward to northwestward, a southeast shift allows
storms to last longer before reaching hostile environments (land, cold SST,
high shear).