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Understanding Storm Changes in a Warming Climate

Explore how storms evolve in a changing climate, from current distribution to future projections. Dive into research findings and analysis approaches for tracking storm patterns.

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Understanding Storm Changes in a Warming Climate

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  1. DO WE KNOW HOW STORMS WILL CHANGE IN A WARMING CLIMATE? William B. Rossow NOAA CREST at The City College of New York June 2013

  2. Mythical Answer: YES Because T↑ => Q ↑ => Clouds & Precip↑ • Fantasy Answer: YES Because the Models say so • Best Answer: NO

  3. Prior Questions • What is the current day distribution of storm strengths? • Only recently completed surveys now revealing key details • What causes the rarer stronger storms? • Better precipitation & radiation datasets now allow diagnosis • How are weak and strong storms coupled to the general circulation? • Different heating but not known -- here is an approach

  4. TOA NET RADIATION & CLOUD EFFECTS

  5. SRF NET RADIATION & CLOUD EFFECTS

  6. HEAT TRANSPORT IMPLIED BY RADIATIVE IMBALANCE BY OCEAN BY ATMOSPHERE

  7. ATM NET LW RAD & CLOUD EFFECTS

  8. CloudSat and tropical cyclones -- So far we have intersected the eyes of 4 different tropical cyclones 20 Eye 20 10 Height (km) 0 -10 -20 -30 0 B Hurricane Ileana MODIS 12 µm (Channel 32) 23 Aug 2006 2100 UTC A A B CloudSat Radar Reflectivity (dBZ) 10

  9. Tropical Weather States

  10. COMPARISON OF ORDINARYTO ORGANIZED CONVECTION WS3 WS1 CLOUDSAT VIEW

  11. Distribution of Tropical Precipitationby Weather State

  12. LW CRE at Surface & TOAAtmospheric Heating/Cooling Cooling Cooling Heating Heating

  13. THE PERFECT STORM

  14. Composite of Diabatic Heating of Atmosphere with Cyclone Strength PRECIP RAD

  15. SO WE KNOW THAT STORMS HEAT THE ATMOSPHERE • WE KNOW THAT THERE IS A WIDE RANGE OF STORM TYPES AND STRENGTHS • WE DON’T KNOW HOW THESE DIFFERENT STORMS ARE COUPLED TO THE GENERAL CIRCULATION • SO WE DON’T KNOW HOW THEY WILL CHANGE IN A WARMING CLIMATE • BUT HERE IS WHAT WE CAN DO

  16. Analysis Approaches • Tropics: Track Mesoscale Convective Systems, Develop Convective Classification, Investigate Convection Initiation & Dynamics (High Time Resolution), Develop Lagrangian Correspondence of Environment & Convective Types, Conduct Large-Domain CRM & GCM Experiments • Midlatitudes: Track Cyclones, Develop Cyclone Classification, Diagnose Diabatic Heating Processes, Investigate Internal (Lagrangian) Heating & Dynamics, Conduct GCM Experiments • Global: Global Weather States & Properties, Indices of Strength of General Circulation, Investigate GWS Distributions & Changes with Circulation Strength, Conduct GCM Experiments

  17. Lifecycle of Tropical Convective System

  18. Level of Neutral Buoyancy

  19. ISCCP GLOBAL WEATHER STATES ISCCP GLOBAL WEATHER STATES

  20. CVS DISTRIBUTIONS FOR GLOBAL WEATHER STATES

  21. 500 MB VERTICAL VELOCITY DISTRIBUTIONS FOR GWS

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