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Impact of Intraseasonal Oscillations on the Tropical Cyclone Activity Over the Gulf of Mexico and Western Caribbean Sea in GFDL HiRAM
Author(s) -
Gao Kun,
Chen JanHuey,
Harris Lucas M.,
Lin ShianJiann,
Xiang Baoqiang,
Zhao Ming
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: atmospheres
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2169-8996
pISSN - 2169-897X
DOI - 10.1002/2017jd027756
Subject(s) - tropical cyclone , climatology , madden–julian oscillation , environmental science , storm , oceanography , geography , meteorology , geology , convection
The tropical cyclones (TCs) that form over the warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico region pose a major threat to the surrounding coastal communities. Skillful subseasonal prediction of TC activity is important for early preparedness and reducing the TC damage in this region. In this study, we evaluate the performance of a 25 km resolution Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) High Resolution Atmospheric Model (HiRAM) in simulating the modulation of the TC activity in the Gulf of Mexico and western Caribbean Sea by the intraseasonal oscillation (ISO) based on multiyear retrospective seasonal predictions. We demonstrate that the HiRAM faithfully captures the observed influence of ISO on TC activity over the region of interest, including the formation of tropical storms and (major) hurricanes, as well as the landfalling storms. This is likely because of the realistic representation of the large‐scale anomalies associated with boreal summer ISO over Northeast Pacific in HiRAM, especially the enhanced (reduced) moisture throughout the troposphere during the convectively enhanced (suppressed) phase of ISO. The reasonable performance of HiRAM suggests its potential for the subseasonal prediction of regional TC risk.