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Evidence of rising and poleward shift of storm surge in western North Pacific in recent decades
Author(s) -
Oey LieYauw,
Chou Simon
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: oceans
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2169-9291
pISSN - 2169-9275
DOI - 10.1002/2016jc011777
Subject(s) - typhoon , storm surge , surge , climatology , storm , climate change , global warming , environmental science , tropical cyclone , oceanography , geology , geography , meteorology
Recently, there has been considerable interest in examining how sea‐level extremes due to storm surge may be related to climate change. Evidence of how storm‐surge extremes have evolved since the start of the most recent warming of mid‐1970s and early 1980s has not been firmly established however. Here we use 64 years (1950–2013) of observations and model simulations, and find evidence of a significant rise in the intensity as well as poleward‐shifting of location of typhoon surges in the western North Pacific after 1980s. The rising and poleward‐shifting trends are caused by the weakening of the steering flow in the tropics, which is related to climate warming, resulting in slower‐moving and longer‐lasting typhoons which had shifted northward.