Seasonal Predictions of Tropical Cyclones Using a 25-km-Resolution General Circulation Model

Abstract

Retrospective seasonal predictions of tropical cyclones (TCs) in the three major ocean basins of the Northern Hemisphere are performed from 1990 to 2010 using the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory High-Resolution Atmospheric Model (HiRAM) at 25-km resolution. Atmospheric states are initialized for each forecast, with the sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA) “persisted” from that at the starting time during the 5-month forecast period (July–November). Using a five-member ensemble, it is shown that the storm counts of both tropical storm (TS) and hurricane categories are highly predictable in the North Atlantic basin during the 21-yr period. The correlations between the 21-yr observed and model predicted storm counts are 0.88 and 0.89 for hurricanes and TSs, respectively. The prediction in the eastern North Pacific is skillful, but it is not as outstanding as that in the North Atlantic. The persistent SSTA assumption appears to be less robust for the western North Pacific, contributing to less skillful predictions in that region. The relative skill in the prediction of storm counts is shown to be consistent with the quality of the predicted large-scale environment in the three major basins. It is shown that intensity distribution of TCs can be captured well by the model if the central sea level pressure is used as the threshold variable instead of the commonly used 10-m wind speed. This demonstrates the feasibility of using the 25-km-resolution HiRAM, a general circulation model designed initially for long-term climate simulations, to study the impacts of climate change on the intensity distribution of TCs.